Soccer show at Williams-Brice delivers an epic night for fans, USC and Columbia

Garnet is usually the color that fills Williams-Brice Stadium when the college football season begins in August, but two different shades colored the stadium’s stands on Saturday as Columbia welcomed one of England’s biggest soccer rivalries.

A sellout crowd of 77,559 fans watched Liverpool and Manchester United, England’s most successful clubs historically, complete their preseason U.S. tours with the first soccer game hosted at Williams-Brice Stadium.

Liverpool was largely dominant in a 3-0 win over its Premier League rivals in a game that saw the home of the South Carolina Gamecocks mix the traditions of its football team and both clubs throughout Saturday’s matchup.

Both sets of supporters sang along with the anthems of their clubs — “Glory Glory” for Manchester United and “You’ll Never Walk Alone” for Liverpool — before the game as the songs blasted over the speakers. The teams walked onto the field through the same flame towers used in the Gamecocks’ “2001” entrance, a familiar sight for those who’ve attended a USC football game.

The stadium’s video board played USC’s usual pre-game hype video with famous highlights of both soccer club’s histories sprinkled in as the teams prepared to kick off. While “Sandstorm” by Darude wasn’t played as often as usual, it was accompanied with a fireworks and light show instead of the USC band at halftime.

South Carolina tried to make the most of the historic event it landed in February, especially with Columbia playing host to two teams that previously played in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and San Diego during their U.S. tour.

“It’s a showcase event, no question about it. (We’re) on ESPN tonight and they’re talking about the University of South Carolina and Columbia.” athletic director Ray Tanner said. “We have a great environment here for football, but we can do other events. … So, there’s opportunities and when you get to showcase what you have, people pay attention.”

Tickets for the game sold out just more than a day after releasing in February and were bought by fans from all 50 states, according to a USC representative. Tanner told The State that about 50% of the crowd of 77,559 traveled from outside of South Carolina.

“Playing in front of that amount of people, that’s something that’s an experience in itself,” Manchester United player Rhys Bennett said. “It was a great atmosphere, big stadium and sometimes you gotta rise to those occasions and just take a mini stride because it’s just an experience that we’re gonna keep with us forever.”

Those fans were from near and far alike.

Armah Vincent, 38, had been to a few Manchester United games before, but was able to bring his 8-year-old son Ari to his first match in person thanks to the short trip down from their hometown of Charlotte.

“We would love to go to Old Trafford to watch games, but our schedule doesn’t really work well with the season,” Vincent said. “We watch (on TV) every weekend, but this is the best opportunity we’ve got in maybe the last five or six years to watch them live.”

Josh Becerra and Steven Calleja became fans of Manchester United and Liverpool, respectively, while going to high school together in Oregon before moving to Indiana and Kentucky for work. Once the matchup was announced in February, they decided to make the trip to Columbia and meet up to watch their favorite teams in person for the first time.

“Being able to actually see the players I’ve been watching on the screen for the first time in person is kind of a surreal moment for me,” Becerra said.

Vincent, Becerra and Calleja were all excited to see their teams’ youth on display, as some of Liverpool and Manchester United’s stars were absent for their respective teams’ U.S. tour.

While players like the Red Devils’ Bruno Fernandes and Kobbie Mainoo or the Reds’ Virgil Van Dijk and Cody Gakpo weren’t available on Saturday, fans still got to watch players such as Mohamed Salah, Marcus Rashford and Casemiro grace the grass pitch in Columbia.

And many of Liverpool’s regular starters contributed to their dominant performance.

Fabio Carvalho opened the scoring for Liverpool in the 10th minute after receiving a pass from Diogo Jota inside of the penalty box, beating past a pair of defenders and finding the bottom right corner via a deflection.

Salah got in behind Manchester United’s defense later in the first half and squared the ball across the net to Curtis Jones, who tapped the cross into an open net from about three yards out in the 37th minute to double Liverpool’s lead. Konstantinos Tsimikas completed the Reds’ dominant victory by tapping home a rebound in the 61st minute to make it 3-0.

While Saturday’s matchup between English rivals was a friendly, the occasional hard tackle and a sold-out Williams-Brice Stadium created an atmosphere that’ll prepare both teams for their quickly approaching Premier League season. Tanner, USC and the tens of thousands of fans that attended the game will hope it’s the first of many events of its kind in Columbia.

“So many people, so much work went into it to get us to this point,” Tanner said. “I visited with the leadership of both clubs and they were ecstatic about the way they’ve been treated and the field conditions and what we did so it’s an exciting time. It’s not every day that the university gets an opportunity to host this kind of event.”