We Love Ya, We Love Ya Not

Footie family, sit down.  We need to talk.

There is a cancer seeping its way through American soccer, starting with the national team all the way down to the collegiate level.  Turn on almost any game and you’ll hear it.  Turn on certain matches and you’ll hear it six or more times in 90 minutes.  It’s so present at some stadiums that you’ll need to Lower.com the volume.

You know the song.  You hate the chant as much as I do, but you’re too nice to say it.  So, allow me:

The “We Love Ya” chant is awful and needs to be eradicated from the sport.

Phew.  Don’t you feel better now?  I do, because it needed to be said.

If you need a refresher regarding this blight to the ears, please click the video below. But I warn you, it’s not for the faint of heart.

Would the song be more tolerable if fans of certain teams didn’t blast the thing on repeat like a 3-year-old listening to “Baby Shark”?  Maybe, but I doubt it.  Because what bothers me most about the chant isn’t the redundancy or the fact that it’s incredibly lame, but rather that supporters are lying to their players multiple times per game.  Let’s break this down:

“We love ya, we love ya”

OK, fine.  Most supporters of teams do love their players.  At least until they make a dumb play and then go straight to Twitter or Slack to shit-talk said player.  Honestly, I have zero issues with this.  We all do it.  Soccer fans are some of the most irrational in the world.  Overreacting to each game of the season as if it’s a knockout contest is a rite of passage.

“And where you go, we’ll follow, we’ll follow, we’ll follow”

Here’s where things fall apart.  I’ve seen the pictures of away days where 20 people show up for a game that’s less than 2 hours by car.  Reddit has the receipts folks.

Stop telling these guys during the heat of battle in a half-empty home match that you plan to follow them everywhere else.  They know you’ll be on your couch while they travel by bus 90 minutes up the road for an away game.*  You aren’t encouraging them.  You’re reminding them why you suck as a fan base.

* Kansas City, you are the exception to this.

“Cause we support you (insert team name)”

Sure you do.  When they are winning.

“And that’s the way we like it, we like it, we like it”

It’s on your convenient terms, random non-inventive SG member.  Why wouldn’t you like it?

LAFC, Portland Timbers, Seattle Sounders, Atlanta United, Inter Miami and a few others, please note that none of this applies to you.  Keep on being awesome.

However, if you’re a fan of other clubs around MLS and after reading this you think “Hey, we use that song!”, you now know the error of your ways.  No longer do you have the excuse of ignorance.  Those days are over.  Right here, right now, you have a choice to make.  Do you want to be on the right side of U.S. soccer history?

It’s up to you to be your city’s version of Batman and become the vigilante for good.  The next time you find yourself in the supporters’ section and this chant happens, start something new.  It can be the damn Kit-Kat song for all I care (after all, giving everyone a break is the goal here).  If you do your part to beat this cancer, you can hold your head high.

The rest of the country will love ya for it.  And who knows, maybe others will follow.