Culture Vulture

Watching last night's MLS Cup, and its exciting penalty-kick finish that gave Real Salt Lake the title over the L.A. Galaxy, made me wish I was there in Seattle watching it.

Luckily, I had the next best thing: Friends who were there, through whom I could experience it vicariously.

Christy Karras, a Utah native and my former colleague here on The Salt Lake Tribune arts desk, is a travel author now living in Seattle. Jeremy Mathews is the former movie critic for the Tribune's sister publication, In Utah This Week, and made the trek to Seattle to watch his beloved RSL play.

Both of them wrote their accounts, which they admit were slightly fueled by Trinity Hall port wine and the adrenaline rush of Real's victory. (The photo of Karras and Mathews, above, was taken shortly after the match by Karras' fiancé, Bill Harper.)

Here's Karras's account:

I've lived in Seattle for almost exactly a year now. We arrived shortly after the demise of the Seattle Supersonics (basketball) and just in time for extraordinarily bad years for the Mariners (baseball), the Seahawks (football), and every college team except women's track and rowing. In short, when it came to Washington state sports, we were glad to be from Utah.

Seattle, ready for a winning team, went crazy for Major League Soccer. By the time we tried to get tickets to a Sounders game, mid-season, they were all sold out. Little did we know we would make it to Qwest Field not for the Sounders but for Real Salt Lake, a Cinderella team from my home state.

The best thing about the game was watching among Real Salt Lake fans. The night was clear, but it had rained for days before then and no one had any reason to expect that the weather would be anything but awful. And yet they came, bearing flags and signs, pouring into the crappy seats assigned to them (the Sounders season ticket holders got the good seats — and Galaxy fans got better seats than RSL fans did). Nothing would deter these guys from cheering for their team — or from commenting knowledgeably about the proceedings. It made me proud to be from Utah. Seriously.

Before the game, the Real fans unfurled a giant flag that everyone helped hold up. For a few minutes, we couldn't see anything, but what was more important was the feeling of helping out, of being a part of a larger community.

The game itself was a nailbiter. Everyone stood for the whole game. Fans gasped as they watched the ball move up and down the field — and groaned when two Real starters were injured and when Galaxy scored the first goal. And then they screamed when RSL responded with a goal of its own. When the Galaxy goalkeeper [Donovan Ricketts] got injured and had to leave the game, the Real fans knew they would have the better goalie if it went to a shootout.

The shootout came, and it was tied — thanks to Nick Rimando's consistently good work (as well as, it has to be said, remarkably levelheaded backup Galaxy keeper Josh Saunders) and a couple flubs by Galaxy players, including Landon Donovan. Sudden death, and RSL finally made the shot the Galaxy didn't. And everyone, perhaps especially the Salt Lake fans, was stunned.

Like most of the RSL fans, I had never been in Qwest Stadium, and we got lost together trying to find our way to the side of the field after the game. We weren't even sure we'd make it, but we all entertained ourselves with songs and chants along the way. We were in our new city, far from the place we'd left, and yet we were completely at home.

And here's Mathews's telling of the tale:

Most Real Salt Lake supporters were relegated to the third tier of Seattle's Qwest Field when they watched their team win the MLS Cup Sunday night. But based on the atmosphere, I never would've guessed I was in nosebleed seats. If you were to distill the most electric components of a Rio Tinto Stadium into one concentrated mass of loud, rude, rowdy fans, you'd get the RSL contingent that stood (no one sat) in section 338 and spilled across the entire west side of the stadium's upper tier.

I didn't expect RSL fans to so significantly outnumber their Los Angeles Galaxy counterparts. While I have no empirical data, the balance was clearly in RSL's favor as the visiting fans sang, chanted and drummed their way from Pioneer Square to the stadium (a march that the Seattle Sounders fans made tradition during their first year in Major League Soccer). The RSL group filled the entire street and spanned at least a city block, waving flags and showing off their banners.

Oddly, the Galaxy fans whimpered along on the sidewalk beside us, instead of going as their own group. The obscenity-loving Rogue Cavalier Brigade could be heard taunting their opponents' supporters with their "Can You Hear LA Sing?" song. (Short, polite answer: No.)

As the march commenced, I saw the man who sat next to me on my flight that morning. He was more than a little inebriated as he exclaimed to me how fantastic his trip was going. His brother was now shirtless, an RSL crest painted on his torso. He thanked me for letting him know about F.X. McRory's pub, Real's official headquarters, whose crowds overflowed onto the sidewalk with already-singing fans.

And yet none of this prepared me for section 338. The cheers halted only once during the match, in stunned silence immediately after Mike Magee's goal put the Galaxy ahead. But a chant of "R! S! L!" swelled back up, with forceful defiance. Looking across the stands, it was easy to pick out the most energized group in the stadium, a splotch of red that never stopped vibrating. It was La Barra Real, which was founded upon the traditions of Latino supporter groups.

Things only became more thrilling after Robbie Findley brought things level and the team looked game to score another goal (although it of course ultimately came down to a penalty shootout). After a couple hours that felt like a nervy soccer eternity, we strangers would hug one another with the unreasonable glee of champions, running around the giant maze of a stadium to get down to the trophy presentation. We crazed supporters may not have been audible from so high up, but we were as loud as we could be. And if that doesn't make us partly responsible for the men who ran around for two hours while we watched, I don't know what does.