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Imma post a slight spicy take here:
I once led a supporters group for this team back in the day. We booed our own players a couple of times over the years while I was there. In 2004, after a game at the Cotton Bowl, Jason Kreis came into the stands. 1/ https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/13/football/dallas-fc-reggie-cannon-booing-spt-intl/index.html
I once led a supporters group for this team back in the day. We booed our own players a couple of times over the years while I was there. In 2004, after a game at the Cotton Bowl, Jason Kreis came into the stands. 1/ https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/13/football/dallas-fc-reggie-cannon-booing-spt-intl/index.html
And since I was the leader of said group, Kreis wanted to talk to me. We had been riding Eric Quill pretty hard during the match and as the captain, Kreis wanted to stand up for his guy. I explained, as best as I could, that it was completely performance-related, not personal. 2/
Maybe we were wrong to do that. Maybe I was wrong to justify it. This gets into the whole issue of what the role of a supporter is. Have your team's back 100% of the time, no matter what? Have your team's back almost 100% of the time, but smack them if absolutely necessary? 3/
But it was nothing personal. As best as I recall 16 years later, none of our, um, commentary was personal. It was directly related to what he was and was not doing on the pitch. And I don't for a second think that Jason was wrong to confront us on behalf of a teammate. 4/
And I couldn't blame Jason or the rest of the team if they thought that we were a bunch of ingrates. These were professionals, and they were trying to do the best they could do because it's their jobs to do so, and these dipshits in the stands are riffing on them? 5/
(Since the universe has a sense of humor, Quill is now a much beloved member of the FCD organization as the head coach of your defending USL League 1 champs. But I digress.) Fast forward to last night. That WAS personal. Those players had not kicked a ball in anger in 5 mos. 6/
They, along with the rest of us, are going through a tough time with this pandemic and they don't get to work from home. And whether or not I think some of them should be on the field or on the team, there is not one of them that should be treated any differently than I am. 7/
And yet, that's not the case. Any number of them would be more likely to be capriciously subject to violence by agents of the state than I would be. That's what the kneeling is about. That's what these protests are about. It is literally a life or death issue. 8/
And their White teammates, who don't have the same worries as their Black and Latino teammates about systematic racism kneeled with them in solidarity, because they've got each other's back, just like Jason Kreis had Eric Quill's back in 2004. 9/
And some "fans" in their own stadium booed them and threw beer for that. Not because they were down 3-0 within 10 minutes or anything like that, but because they were silently kneeling before kickoff of the first game in 5 months. 10/
This is where any debate ends about what it means to be a supporter. When it is the entire team unified behind a stand on a personal, life-or-death issue for some or all of them, you as a fan don't have to agree with them. But if you don't, keep it to yourself. 11/
Because your job as a fan, as a supporter, is to support them, to back them, and to lift them up. If you're booing them before kickoff, that ain't it. And while I think that the role of fan support in games is often overrated, I know booing them before kickoff doesn't help. 12/
If you're booing the team before kickoff, and you're pissed about how they played after kickoff, ask yourself, "How exactly did I help them tonight? How did I support them? How did I help provide home-field advantage?" And the answer should be, "I didn't." 13/
We can have a debate about booing your own players for playing like crap or dogging it or whatever, but booing your own team before kickoff over something they consider to be life-or-death, that's a helluva way be a fan. That's a helluva way to show that you're #DTID 
14/14
14/14
P.S. That statement that FCD put out today was nothingness that was barely supportive of the team's players and not even the marginal amount of electricity used to send it out.
* not even worth
