Who were we, all this time, to deny the Philadelphia Union the Shield?
The hemming and hawing and back and forth over whether to even award the Supportersā Shield in the first place? The initial statement by the council, which seemed to completely ignore the very legitimate argument that in games counted as āregular seasonā this year, many teams would not end up playing against half of the league, and instead decided that the Shield shouldnāt be awarded because there was no fans in the seats? The Greg Vanney interview?? The near-immediate walking back of the initial decision to not award the award after an uproar, only for Vanney and Toronto to piss it all away???
Of course. We were nothing unto the power of the Shield. All of us, mere strands of temporal space being woven together in the great cord of fate that connects us all.
The jubilation in Philly did leave many people wondering, however: why did the Supportersā Shield look like it had been photoshopped in?
Well, dear reader, thatās because it might as well have been. The Supportersā Shield Council sent the Shield along via UPS, which wasā¦ delayed (the U.S. Postal Service would never [I donāt know the restrictions around sending things the size and weight of the shield nor the time constraints the council was under {I was just trying to make a āback the boys in USPS blueā joke}]). But the Union won, and they intended on celebrating. And so something that has happened exactly one time before took place again, which constitutes a time-honored tradition in MLS: they modified a Captain America shield and partied with that bad boy.
It is stunningly perfect, in its own twisted and silly way. That this year, of all years, the Supportersā Shield awarded, at least initially, is a sticker placed atop a childrens to- ahem, a very heavy and sturdy replica piece made for cosplay. That it should be awarded in Philadelphia, of all places, to Philadelphia, of all teams, a day after what is hopefully one of the most pivotal days for the United States in the last several decades, of all times. Something about the fake shield feels deeply American to me, even beyond the obvious Marvel character tie-ins. The fake shield is a moment of blunder, an error occurring, and would be a moment of embarrassment and shame in other leagues. Hell, five or ten years ago, it wouldāve been a major source of embarrassment and shame in this league. But today? Today weāre celebrating it. Eulogizing it. Making sure the world knows the glory of our Captain America replacement shield.
And more to the point: this deserves celebration more than it deserves shame, just as the Red Bulls even-more DIY Supportersā Shield deserved before it. What does it encapsulate? An award that a league determined to be different was not planning on handing out, created by fans to give to players, with enough momentum that MLS decided to recognize it. An award given in the United States, where we say things like āsoccer.ā An award that triumphs the use of the plural possessive apostrophe, letting you know that this award is not one supporterās, nor does it suggest that a āsupporter is.ā Itās Supportersā. Itās all of ours to give, every single year, reserving all of our honor for teams that have strived and struggled to prove something in a competitive format that doesnāt reward the best record in the league like they do anywhere else in the world.
Itās a representation of MLS, a league beat down only to keep getting back up. Not necessarily in the corporate fever-dream sense (seriously, can we stop expanding already), but in the way that the believers with absolutely nothing to gain from believing in their team and their league, the supporters, persevered, stuck around, demanded better, and in large parts, got it. MLS is a far better league now than it was twenty years ago in many, many ways, and it has its supporters to thank for that.
The celebration of the replacement shield is also, I hope, representative of a shift away from MLS fans taking everything so damn seriously. A neat little anecdote for you all: when I started writing the Panic Rankings for The Athletic, very close to the genesis of the site, I first wrote about the World Cup, and then about the Premier League. Both of these helped me developed what would become my calling card of exceptionally weird, referential humor, trying to go beyond cliches and standard sporting jokes and sneak analysis onto the reader in ways that surprised them and maybe, just a little bit, put them off. The Panic Rankings were never meant to be for everyone to love, and there were always people that ādidnāt get itā or thought my writing was terrible, or some such. But many, many more people were really receptive to the Panic Rankings. It became a little highlight of mine to see comments like āworth the price of subscription alongā under those things.
And then, I did them for MLS Cup playoffs. And people haaaaated it.
It wasnāt that I significantly changed what I was doing. It was that MLS fans got REALLY, really defensive about me making fun of their teams, in ways the Premier League fans were not. Thatās fair, to a certain extent. MLS gets picked on a lot in a mean-spirited way. What these fans didnāt seem to get was that I love MLS. MLS is my favorite league in the whole world, and the one I watch the most of by far. Why? Itās a similar feeling to loving the United States the most out of any country in the world. I have no other country. So as angry and sad as this country can make me, itās also the one I love the most, will fight for and with the most, will attempt to bend into its principles the most. Liking MLS as a league might not be as important as all that, but the standards, to me, were similar. I made fun of the league because I loved the league. I loved all there was to make fun of. And at times that humor was supposed to celebrate, and at times it was supposed to bite and criticize. But if the short-lived MLS Panic Rankings taught me anything, it was that MLS fans often cared too much about things that didnāt really need to be cared about. Maybe this is a sign that some of those priorities are shifting, and we can laugh at the things that are funny without sacrificing how serious we take the league.
This Supportersā Shield, for example, will forever have a fat old asterisk next to it. It just will. The MLS schedule isnāt balanced for a single trophy to be given out to a regular season winner in a normal year, with most teams playing far more games in their conference than out of it. This year, the Union played against 13 teams in total in games counted as āregular season.ā They didnāt play against almost half the league to win their trophy to be considered the best team in the league over the regular season. Thatās just the way it is.
But the asterisk next to it should be worn like a badge of honor. The Union, finally, won a trophy. And they did it in the toughest year that sports has ever seen in any of our lifetimes. And they did it with a roster chock-full of kids they managed to bring up from their academy and introduce successfully into professional life. And when they celebrated, they celebrated with a Captain America shield the day after it was decided the country had finally seemed to figure out how to get a wannabe demagogue out of the office of the president. I hope they put all of that in the asterisk section. It deserves to be there, just as Philly deserves this award.
So hereās to Philadelphia, and hereās to the Captain America Supportersā Shield. Contrary to what some think, it represents the best parts of this league.
(But if they donāt take it for a photo op in front of Four Seasons Landscaping with Phang, we need to bully them into making that happen)