Leeds United to display mosaic during game against Middlesbrough

Colorful coordinated fan displays are all the rage these days in football. While fans on the continent and in South America have been doing them for years, they have yet to really catch on in England. Even the United States, where MLS is less than 25 years old, have a number of teams with fans that spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours to perfect their “tifos” to be shown at the very beginning of a football match.

Leeds United are planning to do something similar Sunday before the match against Middlesbrough, with the club’s official website saying,

To add to that atmosphere we can confirm plans for Leeds fans to show their support for the team with a mosaic in the East Stand and flags being provided to home supporters across the stadium.

Cards will be placed on seats in the East Stand lower section which the club will ask supporters to lift when the teams enter the field of play on Sunday which will combine to reveal the club’s motto- ‘Together’.

Flags will also be placed on seats in the North and South Stand as well as being handed out to supporters across the rest of the stadium.

Now if these kind of displays were fan generated and become part of the traditional, it would be a unique thing to English football, where most of the atmosphere is created with noise and singing, not large visual displays. However, if the club is simply looking to add some “atmosphere” by copying other leagues and other fans, it will feel a bit plastic and artificial. Leeds fans don’t need the club to pipe in music like American NFL teams do, nor do they need clappers or other such devices to create atmosphere.

Of course, some of the teams in Eastern Europe and even in MLS have taken these to another level. Will we see things like flares or smoke in English stadiums? Of course not, but maybe some more creative displays wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Who knows, maybe the display will look like one of Celtic FC’s displays.