USA soak in Seattle’s familiar support en route to making World Cup history

Weston McKennie applauded the fans along with other US players after a 2-0 win. Photograph: Jared C Tilton/FIFA/Getty Images

One does not have to go far in Seattle, Washington, to be reminded that it’s a soccer town. Two days before Friday’s 2-0 win for the US over Australia, all I had to do was get on the train.

Riding the light rail to lunch on Wednesday and hopping off at Westlake Station, I was a few blocks from Pike Place Market, the city’s famous waterfront gathering spot. The train car I’d arrived on had been overflowing with US jerseys and Australia kits. Riding the escalator up into the resplendent afternoon sun, someone tugged at my bag.

I’d been recognized, and it led to a few minutes of lovely conversation. Eventually the reader casually mentioned that he’d been a goalkeeper in the 1990s for the Seattle Sounders and the Portland Timbers, long before they joined MLS. It felt so random I couldn’t help but laugh.

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In this part of the country, though, interactions like these can seem like the norm; uniquely associated with teams like the Seattle Sounders and Reign, Portland Timbers and Thorns, and to a slightly lesser extent the Vancouver Whitecaps. The men’s clubs have existed in fits and starts since the 1970s and their fans have navigated some of the leanest years in the history of American soccer, the dark ages between the time the North American Soccer League came crashing down in 1984 and the birth of MLS in 1996.

The Sounders eventually entered MLS in 2009 and were an immediate success. Along with teams like Toronto FC and a handful of others, they helped birth modern American supporters’ culture, and even in the early days their fans were never shy about taking credit, deserved or not. The phrase “Seattle invented soccer” became a running joke amongst MLS fans in other corners of the country. But like most good-natured ribs, there is a kernel of truth.

“Seattle was the boost that showed the world that MLS can [have] a popular, viable and meaningful soccer team in the United States,” MLS commissioner Don Garber told media ahead of Friday’s match. “I never expected the fanbase that they had here from the very beginning and still do. They kind of launched, along with Portland and a handful of others, like Sons of Ben in Philly, this concept of ‘supporters’ culture … Soccer has been here for 50 years. MLS is not what it is without the Sounders. That’s what I’m seeing outside. There is just joy in the streets.”

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Seattle’s deep-seated appreciation for the American game gave Friday’s US vs Australia match a distinctly different feeling, obvious from the second one arrived at the stadium. The streets were flooded with US jerseys of every era, awash in denim, red, white and blue. The noise level inside the stadium was deafening even a half hour before kickoff, and the entire place was full well before the opening whistle. Amid discourse about empty seats at this World Cup, there was not a single one visible on Friday afternoon.

The sight of a full stadium is nothing bizarre in Seattle. The Sounders have sold out Lumen Field (the usual name for Seattle Stadium) for big matches since their inception and have averaged between 30,000 and 40,000 fans a match during the entirety of their existence. Perhaps the more unusual sight on Friday was the USMNT themselves, who have not visited the place in nearly a decade, owing to the stadium’s usual artificial turf surface, which has been replaced for the World Cup with the real stuff. US goalkeeping legend Kasey Keller, a veteran of four World Cups, knows the turf surface well, having played for Seattle at the tail end of his career.

“This is my dream,” said Keller. “People would ask me forever ‘Why isn’t the US team here more often?’ The answer to that question was always the artificial pitch. We can see now what’s possible. I’m hoping the [NFL’s Seattle Seahawks] look at that as well and says to themselves ‘we want to reduce a few injuries here’ and keep this grass pitch.’”

American soccer’s defining visual moment for the last 30 years or so has been the sight of the US beating Colombia in the group stage at the 1994 World Cup, a result that shocked the footballing world. After the whistle of that match, players wandered the pitch at Stanford Stadium. They clutched American flags and, eventually, did a lap of honor, of sorts. There were tears of joy in the stands and on the field alike.

Friday’s result lacked the shock value of the win over Colombia in ‘94 but shared much of the emotion. Players roamed the pitch waving at friends, family and everybody else in attendance. They gathered in a circle and bowed their heads, to the tune (quite aptly) of Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer.

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“Today, even if I am not American, after the game I was emotional,” Mauricio Pochettino told the Guardian when asked about the support. “The atmosphere was amazing, the warm reception and the way that they supported us and celebrated the victory, they made it very emotional. I think it was an amazing and perfect connection between the stands and the team. I think it made us feel very proud.”

Nearly every US fan in attendance stayed put to soak in the result, eventually belting out a rendition of John Denver’s Country Roads, an ode to mountain life and a Seattle sports staple. Like everything else in the city, the stadium sits in the shadow of Mount Rainier and the lyrics felt apt. The sound, the visuals, all of it, felt beautiful, and at that moment, the idea of the US finding a better crowd to play in front of this summer felt a little hard to fathom.

“[At that moment], it’s just being proud of your country, you know?” said defender Auston Trusty, who entered the match in the second half. “I think Country Roads is a very American song, and to hear it in that stadium, with everyone singing along, it’s a dream come true. It’s feelings that you can’t really describe.”