By David Brand

A quick summary of my 2016 Supporter Spotting project: I am documenting all of the soccer apparel I see in and around New York City and compiling the stats at the end of each month. My field research serves as a sort of time capsule to track supporter trends, highlights some unique encounters and delivers the data to prove intuitive notions like “Wow, Barcelona sure is popular.”

This month, I planned a special Supporter Spotting field trip to experience some cultural immersion and — I’ll admit it — to pad the apparel stats of my favorite club, Atlético Madrid. I had cleared my schedule for Atleti’s Champions League clash with PSV so that finally, after following them on Instagram for more than a year, I could join the Peña Atlético de Madrid en New York for the match. A peña is the Spanish equivalent of a fan club, but it provides more than just a loose affiliation among supporters. Peñas are social groups that unite members beyond their favorite club. Next time you watch a La Liga match, check out the various banners draped around the rim of the field and waving in the crowd. Many represent peñas from around the country and the world.

I headed to a bar in Midtown, dressed in my best Diego Godín jersey. When I arrived about forty-five minutes before kick-off, two young women sat for a sightseeing pitstop while a middle-aged man hunched over a newspaper at the other end of the bar. A wall of flat-panel TVs towered above them, illuminating the dim space with pre-match analysis and highlights from Champions League past.

About ten minutes before the match, another Atlético fan named Juan showed up. He headed over to my table and invited me to a balcony overlooking the bar where the peña watches matches on a handful of small televisions. I joined him and, a few minutes into the match, three other Atleticos arrived. When Iñaki, the president, unfurled the peña’s banners and hung them over a railing, Juan proudly informed me that you can sometimes see a similar banner in the crowd on match days at the Vicente Calderón.

Juan also modeled the peña’s official t-shirt. It features an old club crest and a skyline mixing New York City and Madrid landmarks. Guess what? That counts as Atlético Madrid apparel for the Supporter Spotting archives! Thanks, Juan.

Earlier that day, I encountered a Deportivo Cuenca sticker on an SUV in Washington Heights. Combine that with the giant Club Deportivo El Nacional decal I saw on a taxi in Crown Heights and you get a sense that Ecuadorians cherish their home clubs.

In fact, only a brief Montreal Impact sighting on the A Train enabled MLS to topple Ecuador’s Serie A 3-clubs to 2. I’m curious to see how the start of the MLS season affects these trends in March. Maybe we will start seeing more clubs represented.

On the local front, NYCFC dominated this month’s Hudson River Derby and defeated the Red Bulls 8-2. They also rushed out to a commanding lead on aggregate apparel sightings. It’s NYCFC 10 – Red Bulls 4 through two months of 2016. Generally, I have noticed kids wearing NYCFC apparel, especially knit hats, which makes sense since they are a new team appealing to new fans. On the other hand, I have only seen adults wearing Red Bulls gear. That includes one dad in a Red Bulls jacket and matching pants whom I saw pushing a stroller through the pouring rain on West 125th Street. Hopefully he teaches his toddler that #NewYorkisRed so the club can wrestle one young fan away from NYCFC.

Meanwhile, I have to figure out how to charge MLS marketing departments for my top-notch field research.

Finally, I sometimes get disappointed about the lack of soccer apparel on a particular day so I head to the NYU gym for a reconnaissance mission disguised as a leg workout. I’m always on the lookout, even while busting out squats. The gym next to Trader Joe’s on 14th Street serves as a serious soccer jersey incubator On February 1, for example, I spotted a guy wearing a Gremio t-shirt and another wearing a Guangzhou Evergrande jersey. The very next day, Guangzhou bought Jackson Martinez from Atleti for €45 million, an incredible sum that excited Atlético fans around the world — including the diehards who duck out of work on a Wednesday to catch Champions League action.