On Sunday night, the Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers lined up opposite one another in what was one of the most anticipated games in Major League Soccer history. That hype was underlined by the 67,385 fans in attendance at CenturyLink Field, amassing the league's second largest standalone crowd in regular season history.
The obvious headliner on Sunday night, outside of the regularly massive crowds on hand for Sounders-Timbers matchups – last October's clash in Seattle drew 66,452 – was the home debut of Sounders forward Clint Dempsey.
Stealing the show just prior to kickoff, though – once again, as usual – were the Emerald City Supporters with their massive tifo display in the south end of CenturyLink Field. If you haven't yet seen the display, watch the above video right now, and we'll discuss specifics after you finish.
Pretty cool, huh?
If you click on over to the ECS's website, they've got a highly informative fact sheet along with the thought process that went into the design, selecting the individual players to be displayed and how it all came together.
That's definitely worth a quick read on its own, but here are statistical highlights that stand out:
- The sewing, drawing and painting part of "Build a Bonfire" took three weeks of 5-10 pm on weekdays and noon starts on weekends to complete.
- The total size of "Build a Bonfire" was approximately 37,000 square feet.
- 70 gallons of paint were used to achieve 100 percent coverage of the 37,000 square feet of material.
- "Build a Bonfire" required 35 ropes to hoist the curtains that went from the lower level to upper level of CenturyLink Field.
- 3,000 additional black cards were used to "black out" the rest of the section not already under the display, in order to direct attention there.
Well done, Emerald City Supporters. You've set the bar so high for yourself in the past with a personal favorite – "All In," featuring Sounders head coach Sigi Schmid – that this is what we've come to expect as "the norm." It's a good thing we know you – nor your Timbers Army adversaries – will ever let us down.
