Charlotte FC threw one of the biggest parties in city history. The real winner was you
The scoreboard said the L.A. Galaxy edged Charlotte FC 1-0 in the first-ever Major League Soccer game played in Charlotte, but there was an even clearer winner than that:
The Charlotte fans.
As wild as you would imagine a sellout crowd of 74,479 would be at a Saturday night soccer game that has been hyped for two years, double that. That’s what this was. If you’re speaking strictly in terms of atmosphere and not results, it truly was one of the best nights in this stadium’s 26-year history. And that’s not recency bias — as I’ve been to almost every significant event the place has ever hosted.
“Can you believe this?” an obviously excited Panther owner David Tepper said before the game started. “This is the second-largest soccer crowd in the world this year!”
Of course, it would have helped if the home team scored a goal. Charlotte FC has now played two games and has been shut out in both. That “O” in the middle of Charlotte’s name is starting to look a little too symbolic.
Still, the crowd? It was surreal. Soccer fans are different than NFL fans — younger, more diverse and louder. They might be more fickle, too — that remains to be seen — but on this night, the stadium was an absolute blast.
And the fans? They did that. The 1-0 game score was unremarkable. The fans, though, made the night remarkable.
They also made the extraordinary tifo of Queen Charlotte holding a soccer scarf that towered above the supporters’ section in the pregame.
They turned a vacant lot on McNinch Street into a street party for thousands and then walked to the stadium together in a line that was festooned with blue smoke and seemed to stretch for a mile. They posed for selfies with Panther wide receiver Steve Smith, who put on a crown in the pregame ceremonies. They even sang the national anthem on their own in what turned into a beautiful moment, after a microphone malfunction left the scheduled anthem singer with no way to be heard.
You can try to sell tickets all you want, and run all the wild marketing schemes that you want, and it doesn’t matter if the people don’t want your product. Soccer, though, is clearly something enough people in the Charlotte area want that it’s going to work.
Coach Miguel Angel Ramirez said that, despite losing the game, he was ecstatic about the crowd.
“Today I believe that I am the happiest coach in the world,” Ramirez said. “It was amazing. I cannot describe the energy.... It really was a party.”
No, Charlotte FC won’t draw 74,479 to every game. It may not even draw 30,000 to every game this first year. But Charlotte the city was ripe for this — a growing city, in terms of population and diversity. It put 74,000-plus in the seats in a game directly conflicted with UNC-Duke and Coach K’s final home game, as well as a Charlotte Hornets home game (which drew nearly 19,000 fans itself).
“This place is rocking,” MLS commissioner Don Garber said. “A lot of this is unexpected for us.”
The rest of the world wasn’t totally kept at bay. There was a brief chant of “Tar! Heels! Tar Heels!” after UNC had upset Duke.
But for a lot of the time, you could have been in London or Munich or Barcelona and it would have looked the same as this — a packed house, a chanting crowd and long lines at the concession stands.
Garber spoke at halftime about how MLS wants to “ride the momentum of a new America,” a line that is high-flown and sounds like it came from a politician’s stump speech. But it also captured some of what this night felt like. It would have been nice, though, to hear the noise explosion that would have come from an actual goal. Charlotte FC had only five shots the entire game, compared to the Galaxy’s 21.
“The goals will arrive for us,” Ramirez promised.
There was no immediate word whether this was the largest crowd ever in Bank of America Stadium, but it was a few hundred more fans than the number that shoehorned into the stadium for a Clemson-Georgia football game in September and for the NFC championship game during the 2015 postseason.
Charlotte defender Jaylin Lindsey, only 21 years old, was born in Charlotte and has deep roots in the city. He remembered sitting in the nosebleed section for Panthers games as a teenager and wishing he would someday be on the field playing soccer. “So this was one of the best nights of my life, to be honest with you,” Lindsey said.
The Panthers have gone 6-21 in their last 27 games in Bank of America Stadium. Fans have seen a lot of bad things happen to the home team.
So another home loss? That’s not a big deal around here. What was a big deal was this spectacular crowd, in all its messy glory, ushering in a new era of sports in Charlotte.
This story was originally published March 5, 2022 at 10:16 PM.
