Behind the banner: How a World Cup-themed USA tifo...

Behind the banner: How a World Cup-themed USA tifo was born47mAlonzo OlmedoUSMNT must heed World Cup lessons learned in loss to Türkiye8hJeff CarlisleUSMNT player ratings: Turner earns 3/10 as U.S. concedes repeatedly in loss to Türkiye8hRyan ClarkPoch calls critics of loss 'petty': U.

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S. men's national team's final match of 2025 against Uruguay -- and brought the show with them. As cheers billow above, a 20-by-35-foot tifo rose above the crowd and rippled through the stands, its message printed in bold black letters: Sailing to Victory in 2026.

For Juan Ruiz, vice president of the chapter, the moment was more than a reveal. It was the payoff after planning for one of the country's largest soccer supporters' groups, which counts nearly 30,000 members worldwide and about 200 in Tampa Bay."It's been a number of man-hours," Ruiz says.

"It's something that hopefully the Tampa Bay community will remember."Tifos have been a part of fandom and the game since the 1960s. Originating in Western Europe, these elaborate visual presentations consist of large flags, banners and signs created by dedicated fans to express their passion and support for a soccer club.

The term tifo derives from the Italian word tifosi, meaning "fans." However, etymological origins of tifo trace back to the infectious disease, typhus. Newspapers in the 1930s began drawing parallels between the fever-like symptoms of typhus and the emotional outbursts from Italian soccer supporters, thereby associating soccer fandom with a sense of feverish excitement and passion.

Today, tifos are the choreographed showpieces of soccer supporters' sections -- massive, coordinated displays built for maximum impact. Some are designed around rigging systems, with attachment points and ropes allowing for a controlled reveal. At their best, they turn the stands into a canvas, delivering a message, theme or tribute with scale and precision."

They're fan-produced, they take hours of preparation, planning, designing, creating, then execution," says Jeffery Kassing, the co-author of the book, "The Art of Tifo." He believes that tifos serve as a "symbolic platform" for imagined communities that are created through soccer. In these communities, fans can embody their "identity" and "group membership.""

It really becomes like a love letter to the club or to the team," Kassing says. " It's an extreme way to show devotion to a team."play0:34USMNT supporters create tifo for World CupThe Building of a TifoTHE "SAILING TO VICTORY" tifo was unveiled 206 days before the U.

S. faced Paraguay in its opening World Cup match on June 12. The project began to take shape during a conference call in early October among members of the American Outlaws Tampa chapter and the group's national representatives.

Tampa President, Andy Gustafson, expressed the group's intention to create a tifo for the match in November. The idea was fully supported, and preparations were set in motion. According to American Outlaws staffer Whitney Zaleski, designers occas