Local Legends

The Timbers Army and the ECS of Seattle have had a long running competition of tifos; large banners that cover a good part of the stadium that have recently become symbolic of the rivalry between the two teams. Last year, the Sounders really won that war with a four part tifo paying tribute to past (and current) legends. The Timbers Army followed it up with an adequate but not groundbreaking tifo of their own. At the game this Sunday, the Timbers Army revealed a tifo that caused confusion in some fans, mainly due to the sleepy eyed, lightly afroed man depicted in the middle of it with the saying "Legends are born when the previous are surpassed." Impressive, beautiful, and baffling for those of us unfamiliar with who the man was.

So the guy in the middle is Clive Charles, a local legend. He played for the original Timbers from 78 to 81.  He then played Major Indoor Soccer League for the LA Lazers for a while, but retired in 82 specifically to move his family back to the place he loved and coach soccer in the Portland area. Four years later he began coaching at the University of Portland and founded Portland FC.  In his time with the Pilots, he coached the likes of Kasey Keller, Steve Cherundulo, and Shannon MacMillan. He was one of the assistant coaches for the 1998 US World Cup team and coached the 2000 men's Olympic team. He died in 2003 from prostate cancer. He is considered a vital component of the creation of Portland's soccer culture and a lot of stuff in Portland that is soccer related is named after him.

The tifo does bring up a valid point about our lack of soccer legends in the States. I wrote recently about seeing a NASL Sounders game while growing up, but honestly, I wouldn't be able to name a single Sounder from that time period. From a recent Goal.com article featuring interviews with MLS VP Todd Durbin and Thiery Henry:

Durbin argues that the biggest weakness that MLS has in attracting athletes and fans to the league is the lack of history that soccer has in America. Unlike in Europe, where some teams have been around for over 100 years, MLS debuted in 1996. The MLS executive believes that most aspiring athletes and sports fans envision themselves as the popular players in the currently established sports leagues.

…

Henry agrees with Durbin in that respect.  "It's hard when you grew in a house where your dad is always talking to you about a team. Then you grow wanting to be that guy [on the team]," says Henry. "That's also what you're competing against, you're competing against history."

 In the current Timbers squad, they don't have anyone of legendary quality and the only one likely to become a "legend" is possibly Jack Jewsbury, although more for his spirit and work ethic in captaining the new Timbers in their first few seasons. In contrast, the Sounders already have Kasey Keller, Roger Levesque, and a debatable burgeoning legend in Freddy Montero.


The tifos last year were more about taking jabs at each other, but not so much with this one. "Legends are born when the previous are surpassed" is definitely a taunt, but it really isn't directed at the Sounders and is more of an attempt to urge the Timbers to become something more. I hope they heed that call.