“As soccer continues to grow here in the United States, it does so in large part because of the great example of dedicated fans in Kansas City.”
President Barack Obama spoke those words on Wednesday while honoring Sporting Kansas City for winning the MLS cup last season. While Sporting KC does have incredible fans in Kansas City, they also have a growing supporters group three hours away.
There are about half a million people living in Omaha, but the sports are limited. The city gave up on a United Football League team after a few losing seasons, and it took two attempts to start a successful Minor League baseball team separated from the KC Royals. Really, the only options for sports fans in Omaha are the College World Series and Husker football in Lincoln.
With Kansas City a short drive south, Omahan’s gravitated toward KC sports and stuck with them. Sporting KC has been no exception. There is a speck of blue growing in the sea of Husker red.
The Omaha Boys are a group of Nebraskan soccer fans that have officially embraced Sporting KC as their club since 2012. The group started small, but has been steadily growing in size as soccer is being more widely broadcast. The Boys (and Girls) host watch parties, organize road trips to home and away matches, and have a banner flying in the Cauldron.
Their usual meeting place for watch parties is an Irish bar in Midtown Omaha called Barrett’s. The group has watch parties for every national televised match in the basement. The décor says soccer, but last night, all the televisions said baseball. The eight screens upstairs, and the two below, were all playing the LA Dodgers and St Louis Cardinals game.
It took asking a waitress, Katie, to get the Sporting KC at DC United match on in the basement.
“We usually have a lot of people here for these,” Katie said. “It varies week to week, but usually downstairs is packed.”
At kick off, one fan in a Sporting KC scarf walked down the stairs. Ten minutes into the match and four more showed up, but left shortly Dom Dwyer was booked for being on the receiving end of a bad tackle in the 54th minute.
The one loyal supporter stayed until the very end. He didn’t give his name, and he was out the door as soon as Bill Hamid of DC was named Man of the Match only saying, “Well, I suppose he deserved it.”
It was a rough match to watch without factoring in the disappointment the watch party turned out to be. Through a solid downpour, both sides had plenty of chances, but both goal keepers were on point. Spectacular saves were made all night by Hamid and by Andy Gruenebaum of Sporting KC.
Sporting KC only had slightly more possession of the ball than DC. DC had slightly more shots on target than Sporting KC. These are two clubs that were so evenly matched that even when Benny Feilhaber came on for Toni Dovale in the 78th minute, he couldn’t do much.
It was a stalemate, but Sporting KC is back at the second spot in the standings 46 points. Ben Olsen and DC United have gained their slot in the playoffs, and rightfully so.
Next week, Sporting KC host Chicago Fire on Friday at 8:30 EST. That match will only be available on MLS Live, so it might be safe to guess that there will not be an Omaha Boys watch party next Friday either. It’s my personal hope that they organized a road trip to DC and were in those stands in the rain, cheering on their team.
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