The home stadium of the Chinese Super League at Chengdu Phoenix Mountain Professional Football Stadium is enough to get out of the circle, and the passionate singing and dancing, the waves of people around the field for three weeks and the warm and romantic starlight chorus have long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. On the evening of May 23, Chengdu fans played a new trick again in Phoenix Mountain, and its visual effects were extremely explosive, which shocked the audience again!
At 19:30 today, when the entrance song "FIFA Anthem", a familiar fan song, sounded over the Phoenix Mountain Professional Football Stadium, the starting players of Chengdu Rongcheng and Shanghai Shenhua led the following teams into the stadium under the guidance of the referee team. At this time, there was a restless sound in the stands - the square array where the Chengdu "Red Blade" fan club of the Phoenix Mountain North Stand was located, a giant Tifo of 800 square meters slowly pulled away from the bottom row upwards, and finally, the picture of an abstract figure unfolding a "Target Asia" banner with both hands was completely displayed in front of the audience. The strong visual impact brought by this scene made many fans at the scene shake their souls, and a sense of pride as Chengdu fans was born.
"Red Blade" once again contributed a famous scene to Phoenix Mountain, and Red Star News reporters also interviewed the head of the fan club for the first time, asking them to tell the story behind the launch of the largest Tifo in the history of "Red Blade".
1. Revealing the inside story of the birth of 800 square meters of hand-painted Tifo
Nearly 100 people, it took 167 hours to finally complete
A TIFO is a large banner or puzzle that covers the grandstands. The Tifo culture was born in Italy and is said to date back to ancient Roman times. In the 70s of the last century, in the city derby of AC Milan and Inter Milan, the Tifo culture was popularized on the pitch, and Serie A fans began to make Tifo with a larger area and more spectacular visuals, which also became a beautiful landscape of Serie A. Since then, Tifo culture has been widely spread in European and American football, Japan and South Korean football, and the fan stands of Dortmund and Frankfurt have been out of the circle because of the very creative shock of Tifo.
The Tifo displayed in the "Red Blade" phalanx tonight covers an area of 800 square meters, and there were "spoilers" before the game that the Blade's Tifo will be the largest in the history of the Chinese Super League. But Chen Tao, president of the "Red Blade" fan club, told Red Star News reporters: "Today's Tifo is not the most in the Chinese Super League, and the largest should be born in the home stadium of Jiangsu Suning. However, this is certainly the largest Tifo in the history of Blade, and our previous largest Tifo was only more than 300 square meters. ”
So, how did this 800-square-meter giant Tifo come about?
Zhu Yu, director of the "Red Blade" fan club, revealed to Red Star News that the main responsibility for Tifo's drawing this time is the design team of the fan club, "There are some art members in our association, they first outline the outline of the entire pattern on the fabric, and then the participating members color it on it according to the requirements, and everyone divides the work to complete." From nine o'clock in the morning last Sunday to one or two o'clock in the morning the next morning, it took a total of sixteen or seven hours. ”
Blade fans find a ground floor overhead space below the elevated to draw the Tifo
Zhu Yu revealed that because drawing the Tifo requires a large space, the initial selected location was an open space at the north gate, "but when it rained that day, everyone could only move immediately, and finally found a ground floor overhead space under the elevated road to Tianfu International Airport, so that there was a place where the rain could be covered and the operation could be carried out." Chen Tao said that the fabric of the entire Tifo weighed more than 100 pounds rolled up, "After the rain, it weighed more than 200 pounds, and ordinary private cars could not fit at all, and finally called a cargo Lala to complete the transfer work." ”
Drawing a Tifo is a huge amount of work
According to Chen Tao, the "Red Blade" took nearly 100 people to finally complete this completely hand-painted work, "just 1 liter of acrylic paint, it took dozens of barrels!" ”
2. Interpret the deep meaning of "Target Asia"
Not only the expectations of the team, but also the desire to present the Asian grandstand
To Chen Tao's relief, the members of the "Red Blade" fan club were very active in participating in this drawing activity.
"After all, it was a weekend, and many members had their own things, but although some people were busy, many people participated as much as possible, and some members brought children to help together. Some people may find time to come over for two hours, during which time help with color grading and brush a few brushes. When he came, he gained a sense of participation, which is why we planned this event. Because there are many new members of Blade now, we also hope that everyone can find a sense of participation and cohesion through such activities, and can better integrate into the association. So when the latest group of members of the day was coming, in fact, the whole work was almost in the final stage, and I also said that everyone didn't have to come again, but they didn't do it, they had to come and help again, I think this is a very good spirit. ”
Some members also bring children to help
According to Zhu Yu, today's display of this giant Tifo in Phoenix Mountain, the purchase price of raw materials alone reached more than 6,000 yuan. Compared with hand-painting, airbrushing is undoubtedly more convenient, but Chen Tao and Zhu Yu both said that the meaning and feeling of hand-painting are different. As for the theme of "Target Asia" above Tifo, many believe that it is Chengdu fans hoping to inspire Chengdu Rongcheng to attack the AFC Champions League qualification this season. At the fan open day before the start of this year's league, Chengdu Rongcheng coach Xu Zhengyuan said that he would lead the team to qualify for the AFC Champions League this year.
However, in an interview with Red Star News, Chen Tao talked about another meaning of "target Asia", saying: "In 2018, when the 'Red Blade' fans came back to support Chengdu Xingcheng, we actually put forward a request for ourselves internally, and it was also a plan for the vision of the association. That is, since we are back, we want to become an Asian-level fan association, which is our positioning for ourselves, to present an Asian-level stand at home! Whether it's the atmosphere of the stands and the spirit we show, we are all on par with the Asian level. This is my understanding of the four words 'Target Asia'. ”
Chen Tao also revealed that Shenhua's Blue Devils fans will come to Chengdu this time, and the fans of the two sides also gathered together before the game, he said: "Blade and Blue Devils are friendly fan organizations for more than ten years, and Shanghai's fan culture has actually always been ahead." When we talked about the Tifo that will be shown today, the fans of the Blue Devils are also very concerned and are full of expectations for the effect of seeing this Tifo unfold at the game scene. Therefore, the planned Tifo exhibition in Phoenix Mountain is also hoping to use our hand-painted works to realize the exchange between fan organizations and fan culture. ”
Red Star News Reporter Jiang Shan Photojournalist Liu Haiyun
Some images are from interviewees