“Verde! Listos!”: Fútbol, Community, and Austin FC

Rigoberto Rodriguez Lira

Rigoberto Rodriguez Lira is a fan of Austin FC and Tigres UANL, based in Austin, Texas. He was born in Reynosa, Mexico and grew up in McAllen, Texas. He has just finished a term as an elected leader of La Murga de Austin and Los Verdes, independent supporter groups for Austin FC.

Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your soccer life?

My name is Rigoberto Rodriguez Lira, and fútbol has given me some of the most memorable moments of my life. It has been key in my development as a person, taught me to fight for the things I believe in and the things that I want to achieve. It has shown me that even when everyone thinks there is no chance to succeed, if you keep pushing, there is still an opportunity for a comeback. Whether it is on a personal matter, as a team or as a community. 

I was born in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico and grew up in McAllen, Texas. McAllen is a border town where I was able to be close to my Mexican roots, but also experience life in the United States with my two sisters, my mother and at times my father. My first close interactions with the sport were during the 1994 World Cup where I remember watching matches with my parents on television. 

They would eventually take me to the city of San Nicolas de Los Garza near Monterrey, Mexico to watch my mother's alma mater, Tigres de la Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León. Tigres UANL sparked my passion for fútbol. After watching them win a Mexican League championship and close a  29-year drought in 2011, I moved to Austin to go to the University of Texas. I wanted to find a place with a community of Tigres fans, even if we were miles, and to some an uncrossable border, away from San Nicolas de Los Garza, their stadium. 

I found a place where people would gather to support Tigres. A place for passion, a place to sing and chant, a place that for 90 minutes brought us back to our Estadio Universitario - "El Volcan" (“the volcano” in Spanish) - and gave us a sense of where we came from. Being highly involved in a group like this gave me the opportunity to travel to watch Tigres in different places and live many experiences. Good and bad, but the team would always rise to the top “a lo Tigres,” in the Tigres way.

Fútbol has given me friendships, but most importantly it has let me be a part of communities and given me places where I belong. Spaces where we can use the purest form of the sport and fandom for the good, through passion, support and belief.  

What are Los Verdes and La Murga de Austin?

Los Verdes is a large independent supporter group for Austin FC and La Murga de Austin is our supporters band. We focus on spreading the love and passion for our team and stadium culture from the stadium stands to the rest of our city. La Murga brings people together by being the soundtrack to our match atmosphere. Los Verdes and other supporter groups are the voice that brings our support together in the South End of the stadium. 

We actively participate in providing gameday environments around the city during match days, community events, holidays, festivals and more. The supporter groups are platforms for supporters to communicate, build community and create for our city and our club.

My term as an “elected leader” of Los Verdes and La Murga has just ended. But as I like to say to the members, you do not need to have a title to be a leader, and I continue to help lead and create for our Verde community.

What did you try to show with the photos? Was there any wider meaning with the photos?

The majority of the photos were taken while I was on the move and helping coordinate our supporters in a loud, vibrant, and passionate environment of singing and chanting. These photos were taken mostly in Austin but some of them were also taken on away travel trips our supporters took to Atlanta and Washington D.C. 

Our stadium is a high energy environment, an inclusive place with people from all walks of life, color, gender, and ages. A community that is inviting of all to live and experience the sport with high intensity and love for what we represent as a city and a team.   

There is one thing that has always stood out to me since the beginning of our journey as supporters for Austin FC and that is Fútbol y Comunidad - Soccer and Community. This sport is our platform to create a community and we have stuck to this idea in these first few years of supporting the Verde and Black. Fútbol is our tool to impact people on and off the pitch and we have the opportunity to guide that support and have made it the essence of our club, something true to Austin. 

What role does football play in the Austin community and in Texas and the USA more broadly?

Austin has been a soccer city for a long time. It had football communities gathering at local pubs to watch big European professional teams. There has also been a lot of youth football development and local academies have been around for years, becoming more competitive as the city has grown. The interest and following for the sport were here, but we needed a reason to all gather for the same team. Austin FC has provided that. 

Austin FC is the first professional team in the city. Football is a gathering of many cultures, and the cultures of Austin need a place to unite. Personally, it has let me express my Latino culture, and also let me learn of other cultures and creatively incorporate them into what we do in our stadium. We try to respect what football is in different parts of the world and bring it to Austin FC. 

In our first two years the club has shown us commitment to match the loudness in the stands, with quality players that have shown commitment to the club’s culture and hard work on the pitch. We went from a difficult season with roster challenges in year one to a conference final in year two, exceeding the goals that were set for the season. 

The first Austin FC team to ever take to the pitch was the Under 14 Academy team in 2019. As the club has grown and expanded to have more categories and a professional team, our fans have followed the club's growth closely. At times we get to show up for the developing players and show our support, hoping this will impact them positively as they work hard to become our homegrown players and play for the first team. 

Our interest to support local soccer in our community goes beyond Austin FC. We support local women’s soccer, high schools, and other local clubs through our city as we take the stadium environment with us and try to grow our stadium culture around our city.

Do you organize many away game trips?

Some of the photos show our away day in Atlanta, Georgia - an organized larger away trip that was selected as one of our destination trips to support the Verde and Black. Our away support has been ingrained in our culture as we take anything from 200 to 1000+ supporters to our larger coordinated away matches. We have made sure there are at least a few fans at every away game that our team has played. 

Our march to the match that day was led by our women leaders. It has always been important for our group to raise our voice in support during social issues and raise awareness. This match happened a few days after Roe Vs. Wade had been overturned after 50 years, which eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, which in turn affects the lives of our women supporters. In solidarity with Atlanta supporters, we took 7 minutes of silence at the beginning of the match and raised a banner in support. After the 7 minutes we were loud for our team and came out with a result of 3-0 in Austin's favor as our team was on its way to a historic season in just its second year of existence. 

We also organized a trip to Washington DC, another of our large trips for season 2, where we were able to bring 200 supporters to one of the furthest destinations in the league. Everywhere we go it is important for us to bring our colors and our culture. We pride ourselves in bringing the Verde and Black to different cities and making a loud and colorful statement for our team. Everywhere they go, they will always see the bright Verde in the stands. We have pre matchday parties and after parties filling bars, restaurants and streets with our colors and chanting our songs. 

Our Away Day comes with a Verde meet up at iconic places in the cities we visit to commemorate each trip. We do our best to bring our banners and flags and instruments as we travel hundreds of miles through the states to watch our team and represent Austin. This match in DC had a long rain delay and when the match finally began, we had to keep ourselves motivated and chanting. Sometimes this is hard when your team goes down 2-0 for most of the match, but if you don’t give up great things can happen. After 80 minutes of a tough match, the team was able to find spaces and score 3 goals in 10 minutes for a historic comeback for a 3-2 victory.

What did you try to capture inside the stadium?

I tried to capture some of the intensity that is lived at our stadium, Mckalla Place. The match day experience is something that has to be lived. It is vibrant and intense but with a purpose. 

Mckalla Place was the original name of the site they built Q2 Stadium on. The street Mckalla Place runs behind the south end of the stadium, behind the supporter section. To some of us it will always be Mckalla Place.  

Since before the team played a game, we have been lucky to have a sold-out stadium. You can see and feel the closeness and participation of the people to create this environment. We have been working on creating songs and chants for our team since before the team had a single player in its roster. It has always been important for us to be inclusive in this process. While many of our songs have a Latin American vibe to them, we are versatile enough to change into different rhythms and song adaptations with roots from different places. La Murga de Austin is a community band for all of Austin founded on the love for fútbol. 

We bring a style of music that is not uncommon around the world of football, but also not the normal style of support in Major League Soccer. It has always been important for us to make sure that the quality of what we do is of a high standard and that we put time and effort into creating and performing the music. 

La Murga brings in members of all levels, from members that have enough passion to learn to play an instrument with no musical background, to members that have been around music their whole lives and are willing to teach and give their time to make an idea into a reality. This is the creative culture that exists in Austin since before we had a team. The city is rich in artists and musicians that have made Austin the creative place it is. Austin is known as the Live Music Capital of the World, and we want to showcase that in our matchday experience.

Our community band gets to play for 20,500 people every match, but we know the voice of our supporters is the most important instrument in La Murga. The voice of our stadium brings our people together, just like our city comes together at times of hardship.    

I also tried to show the ways that it is special to enjoy the emptiness of a football stadium. Especially those stadiums that submerge you in the home team's colors. We get to come in and set up our banners in the supporters’ section pre match. We absorb the calm environment before we see it go from 0 to 100. 

Mckalla Place is a modern structure that was made with the gameday experience in mind. We create banners with local figures, messages of support and creative phrases that we hope our city, club and players identify with. Some of the art is art that you can walk around the city and see on murals and iconic places, then you come to the stadium and see them again in Verde. Our art is all hand painted by the people in the Austin FC community.  

Are there any other rituals that you take part in?

During some matches we create large art displays, tifo, to welcome the team onto the pitch. Our tifo range in sizes of 55 feet by 55 feet to 100 feet by 60 feet. In these displays we get to really show Austin's creative game to the world. Hundreds of volunteers come together to create football art, from someone that has never painted in their life to local artists that live and breathe Austin FC. 

Together we create moments that go from bare fabric to a full art display. This process is a true work of love for Austin and Austin FC. What takes many days to create is only displayed for 2 to 3 minutes before a match, but it is not to be underestimated. When these pieces rise from the ground, they create and set the tone for matches. The moments created have been stored in our memories as some of the most iconic in our club’s history; from our first ever home match, to high scoring games and our first ever playoff victories leading us to our first ever conference final. 

Having rituals as a young team has helped us identify, unite and highlight our culture of community. A heartbeat rhythm is played on a Bombo, the style of drum that is iconic to our stadium culture. The drum is played by a member of the Austin community that is recognized every match for what they have contributed to our city, while the voices of 20,500 fans chant “Verde! Listos!” as we are ready to take on the opponent that comes to our city to face us. 

Every match before kick-off, our goalkeeper faces the supporters section and soaks in the environment as he gets ready to give us his best 90. He is one of our local heroes that took a chance at coming to Austin, to a brand-new team, to make a mark in our history. A person that has lived a long career in the league and has never stopped fighting for a chance. Our first ever number 1, Brad Stuver. A number 1 that has been an advocate for the people and the community everywhere he has gone. A number 1 that has fit just right into the City of Austin's culture of giving back. A hero on and off the pitch.

Post-match, we keep chanting. We chant to the tune of local music legend Daniel Johnston, who is now honored through a charity that highlights the importance of mental health awareness. “True Love Will Find You In The End,” is sung by the supporters as the players approach The South End. A song about many things, in our environment it seems like a song about union, about fighting until the end, about not giving up. But everyone can choose what it means to them depending on what they are living or going through at that moment in their life, while singing it in one voice with their Verde family. 

When the players get to the South End they gather facing the supporters section, they meet the wall of supporters and the match is closed with a final heartbeat ritual as the man of the match plays the drum for a final “VERDE! LISTOS!” with the people.  

What is the future for soccer in Austin and the USA?

As supporters, one of our goals has been to be an example of support for USA supporters. If you have love, passion, leadership, creativity and community you can do anything you set your mind to. As the third Major League Soccer team in Texas and with the high bar we set for our support, we have already started seeing changes in Houston and Dallas to actively support their teams. We have been met with large tifo displays and growing crowds by the other Texan teams when Austin travels to play them and we also see it when we travel to other stadiums. This is something that I want to see more of as we grow. I hope supporters around the league look at what has been created in Austin and use it as inspiration to create and unite, and not be afraid to aim high for their own teams.

For Austin at the start of our third season, it is time to maintain ourselves and be constant with our support for the next few years as we establish ourselves. Our culture needs to keep growing and spreading through our stadium and our city. More leaders will need to step up and take care of what is already established and make sure the support goes on. It will be important to remember that we do this for something bigger than ourselves, we do it for Austin.