Nowadays in the Champions League, it often feels as if there are two games taking place at every stadium: one on the pitch and one off it. Before the players even take to the turf, the show is under way in the stands as banners unfurl from on high, cascading down with elaborate images that dwarf the giants of the game beneath them.
Some pay homage to fan favourites from the past, others relay messages of intimidation or defiance. Others still – well, namely Marseille’s – display huge pictures of Bob Marley and the Beatles instead. But whatever the purpose, the tifo has become a major part of the pre-match build-up.
“Tifos get the blood pumping,” explains Dan Evans, who, along with Ed Fenwick from Arsenal fan group Eighteen86, was responsible for the Gunners’ tifo display at the Champions League final in Budapest. “When they go up, you feel the charged atmosphere in the stadium, and that’s what a good tifo is for, to bring the energy.”
Born in stadiums across Italy in the 1960s and 1970s, the tifo takes its name from the very same supporters who brought this piece of terrace culture to life, the term deriving from the Italian word for fans, tifosi. Traditionally handmade and paid for by supporters, these banners have long been a direct form of communication with their team, their favourite players or their most bitter rivals.
But from those simple hand-painted placards and bedsheets-turned-banners, the tifo has undergone a startling metamorphosis in the modern game, becoming an opportunity for fans to send off their teams with one last message, one final almighty roar of encouragement.
Imagine, then, being responsible for putting together one of these collective calls to arms for the biggest game in your club’s history – like, say, their first Champions League final in 20 years?
“As a lifelong Arsenal fan, it was an incredible honour,” Evans says. “We had three pieces in Budapest – a North London Forever banner with the cannon, a runner hanging from the middle tier and a clock face from the Clock End at our home ground. Fan groups we’d spoken to about the pieces decided on the messaging, and the clock face was something they really wanted, to make it feel like our home away from home over in Budapest.
“The clock face was drawn by hand and then blown up digitally, and then the cannon was based on an old flag that used to fly above Highbury. All the typography was done by hand on a digital pad because we wanted to maintain that classic hand-drawn aesthetic and feel.”
In 2025/26, it really felt as if the Champions League took its tifo game to the next level. Paris Saint-Germain caught the eye with a red-and-blue Incredible Hulk ripping Liverpool’s crest in two, then for the final their tifo showed they had no intention of relinquishing the trophy by depicting it wrapped tightly in their arms. Real Madrid went nautical, with Spanish galleons descending on Manchester City, while an emotional tribute by Galatasaray fans to star striker Victor Osimhen had plenty reaching for their hankies, emblazoned as it was with the words: “We are family and family is everything.”
Newcastle pulled out an extraordinary, intricately choreographed piece calling for the Magpies to “Write the next headline” against PSV, with a series of newspaper-style banners celebrating their greatest European moments scattered throughout the Gallowgate End, accompanied by a roar that rocked the Richter scale. For those of us lucky enough to be there, it was a genuinely hair-raising moment.
On a Champions League night, tifos provide an exciting subplot to the main event. Anticipation rises as you pass through the turnstiles and jostle your way to your seat, knowing that you’re going to see something special, something memorable that you’ll take home beyond the scoreline itself.
And it’s not just fans getting involved; clubs too are in on the act. “The first tifo Ed and I worked with Arsenal on was for the north London derby in November,” Evans says. “Arsenal had already consulted various fan groups before they approached us, so we just had to bring the idea to life, which was basically some of Arsenal’s most iconic players celebrating moments against Tottenham.
“Even though the overall idea was already agreed on with supporters, the players that would be included, the overall layout, everything else was up in the air, so there were two months of back and forth with fan groups and the club, where we were putting together doodles and designs. Mikel Arteta had even seen one of the roughs and had some suggestions. It was pretty mind-blowing to think that he’d seen it and chipped in with a few ideas.
“I was there for the match, so when it went up, it was the most incredible experience as both a fan and someone who had worked on it. I didn’t know for the actual game there was going to be a light show or Eminem playing through the speakers or anything. It genuinely was an indescribable moment. I still get goose bumps thinking about it now.”
Arsenal gave those two pieces of modern Gunners history a second outing at their end-of-season celebration in north London – a gesture not lost on fans.
“I was there to see our tifos at the trophy parade, and I’ve genuinely never experienced anything like that in my life, and I can’t imagine I ever will again. It was like the perfect storm of emotions in that moment, and that’s a feeling you can never take away from me.”
Modern tifos might not be as rough around the edges as when they first appeared in southern Europe, but they remain – as they should – the canvas of the fans. It will be fun to see what they come up with this season.
Nowadays in the Champions League, it often feels as if there are two games taking place at every stadium: one on the pitch and one off it. Before the players even take to the turf, the show is under way in the stands as banners unfurl from on high, cascading down with elaborate images that dwarf the giants of the game beneath them.
Some pay homage to fan favourites from the past, others relay messages of intimidation or defiance. Others still – well, namely Marseille’s – display huge pictures of Bob Marley and the Beatles instead. But whatever the purpose, the tifo has become a major part of the pre-match build-up.
“Tifos get the blood pumping,” explains Dan Evans, who, along with Ed Fenwick from Arsenal fan group Eighteen86, was responsible for the Gunners’ tifo display at the Champions League final in Budapest. “When they go up, you feel the charged atmosphere in the stadium, and that’s what a good tifo is for, to bring the energy.”
Born in stadiums across Italy in the 1960s and 1970s, the tifo takes its name from the very same supporters who brought this piece of terrace culture to life, the term deriving from the Italian word for fans, tifosi. Traditionally handmade and paid for by supporters, these banners have long been a direct form of communication with their team, their favourite players or their most bitter rivals.
But from those simple hand-painted placards and bedsheets-turned-banners, the tifo has undergone a startling metamorphosis in the modern game, becoming an opportunity for fans to send off their teams with one last message, one final almighty roar of encouragement.
Imagine, then, being responsible for putting together one of these collective calls to arms for the biggest game in your club’s history – like, say, their first Champions League final in 20 years?
“As a lifelong Arsenal fan, it was an incredible honour,” Evans says. “We had three pieces in Budapest – a North London Forever banner with the cannon, a runner hanging from the middle tier and a clock face from the Clock End at our home ground. Fan groups we’d spoken to about the pieces decided on the messaging, and the clock face was something they really wanted, to make it feel like our home away from home over in Budapest.
“The clock face was drawn by hand and then blown up digitally, and then the cannon was based on an old flag that used to fly above Highbury. All the typography was done by hand on a digital pad because we wanted to maintain that classic hand-drawn aesthetic and feel.”
In 2025/26, it really felt as if the Champions League took its tifo game to the next level. Paris Saint-Germain caught the eye with a red-and-blue Incredible Hulk ripping Liverpool’s crest in two, then for the final their tifo showed they had no intention of relinquishing the trophy by depicting it wrapped tightly in their arms. Real Madrid went nautical, with Spanish galleons descending on Manchester City, while an emotional tribute by Galatasaray fans to star striker Victor Osimhen had plenty reaching for their hankies, emblazoned as it was with the words: “We are family and family is everything.”
Newcastle pulled out an extraordinary, intricately choreographed piece calling for the Magpies to “Write the next headline” against PSV, with a series of newspaper-style banners celebrating their greatest European moments scattered throughout the Gallowgate End, accompanied by a roar that rocked the Richter scale. For those of us lucky enough to be there, it was a genuinely hair-raising moment.
On a Champions League night, tifos provide an exciting subplot to the main event. Anticipation rises as you pass through the turnstiles and jostle your way to your seat, knowing that you’re going to see something special, something memorable that you’ll take home beyond the scoreline itself.
And it’s not just fans getting involved; clubs too are in on the act. “The first tifo Ed and I worked with Arsenal on was for the north London derby in November,” Evans says. “Arsenal had already consulted various fan groups before they approached us, so we just had to bring the idea to life, which was basically some of Arsenal’s most iconic players celebrating moments against Tottenham.
“Even though the overall idea was already agreed on with supporters, the players that would be included, the overall layout, everything else was up in the air, so there were two months of back and forth with fan groups and the club, where we were putting together doodles and designs. Mikel Arteta had even seen one of the roughs and had some suggestions. It was pretty mind-blowing to think that he’d seen it and chipped in with a few ideas.
“I was there for the match, so when it went up, it was the most incredible experience as both a fan and someone who had worked on it. I didn’t know for the actual game there was going to be a light show or Eminem playing through the speakers or anything. It genuinely was an indescribable moment. I still get goose bumps thinking about it now.”
Arsenal gave those two pieces of modern Gunners history a second outing at their end-of-season celebration in north London – a gesture not lost on fans.
“I was there to see our tifos at the trophy parade, and I’ve genuinely never experienced anything like that in my life, and I can’t imagine I ever will again. It was like the perfect storm of emotions in that moment, and that’s a feeling you can never take away from me.”
Modern tifos might not be as rough around the edges as when they first appeared in southern Europe, but they remain – as they should – the canvas of the fans. It will be fun to see what they come up with this season.
Nowadays in the Champions League, it often feels as if there are two games taking place at every stadium: one on the pitch and one off it. Before the players even take to the turf, the show is under way in the stands as banners unfurl from on high, cascading down with elaborate images that dwarf the giants of the game beneath them.
Some pay homage to fan favourites from the past, others relay messages of intimidation or defiance. Others still – well, namely Marseille’s – display huge pictures of Bob Marley and the Beatles instead. But whatever the purpose, the tifo has become a major part of the pre-match build-up.
“Tifos get the blood pumping,” explains Dan Evans, who, along with Ed Fenwick from Arsenal fan group Eighteen86, was responsible for the Gunners’ tifo display at the Champions League final in Budapest. “When they go up, you feel the charged atmosphere in the stadium, and that’s what a good tifo is for, to bring the energy.”
Born in stadiums across Italy in the 1960s and 1970s, the tifo takes its name from the very same supporters who brought this piece of terrace culture to life, the term deriving from the Italian word for fans, tifosi. Traditionally handmade and paid for by supporters, these banners have long been a direct form of communication with their team, their favourite players or their most bitter rivals.
But from those simple hand-painted placards and bedsheets-turned-banners, the tifo has undergone a startling metamorphosis in the modern game, becoming an opportunity for fans to send off their teams with one last message, one final almighty roar of encouragement.
Imagine, then, being responsible for putting together one of these collective calls to arms for the biggest game in your club’s history – like, say, their first Champions League final in 20 years?
“As a lifelong Arsenal fan, it was an incredible honour,” Evans says. “We had three pieces in Budapest – a North London Forever banner with the cannon, a runner hanging from the middle tier and a clock face from the Clock End at our home ground. Fan groups we’d spoken to about the pieces decided on the messaging, and the clock face was something they really wanted, to make it feel like our home away from home over in Budapest.
“The clock face was drawn by hand and then blown up digitally, and then the cannon was based on an old flag that used to fly above Highbury. All the typography was done by hand on a digital pad because we wanted to maintain that classic hand-drawn aesthetic and feel.”
In 2025/26, it really felt as if the Champions League took its tifo game to the next level. Paris Saint-Germain caught the eye with a red-and-blue Incredible Hulk ripping Liverpool’s crest in two, then for the final their tifo showed they had no intention of relinquishing the trophy by depicting it wrapped tightly in their arms. Real Madrid went nautical, with Spanish galleons descending on Manchester City, while an emotional tribute by Galatasaray fans to star striker Victor Osimhen had plenty reaching for their hankies, emblazoned as it was with the words: “We are family and family is everything.”
Newcastle pulled out an extraordinary, intricately choreographed piece calling for the Magpies to “Write the next headline” against PSV, with a series of newspaper-style banners celebrating their greatest European moments scattered throughout the Gallowgate End, accompanied by a roar that rocked the Richter scale. For those of us lucky enough to be there, it was a genuinely hair-raising moment.
On a Champions League night, tifos provide an exciting subplot to the main event. Anticipation rises as you pass through the turnstiles and jostle your way to your seat, knowing that you’re going to see something special, something memorable that you’ll take home beyond the scoreline itself.
And it’s not just fans getting involved; clubs too are in on the act. “The first tifo Ed and I worked with Arsenal on was for the north London derby in November,” Evans says. “Arsenal had already consulted various fan groups before they approached us, so we just had to bring the idea to life, which was basically some of Arsenal’s most iconic players celebrating moments against Tottenham.
“Even though the overall idea was already agreed on with supporters, the players that would be included, the overall layout, everything else was up in the air, so there were two months of back and forth with fan groups and the club, where we were putting together doodles and designs. Mikel Arteta had even seen one of the roughs and had some suggestions. It was pretty mind-blowing to think that he’d seen it and chipped in with a few ideas.
“I was there for the match, so when it went up, it was the most incredible experience as both a fan and someone who had worked on it. I didn’t know for the actual game there was going to be a light show or Eminem playing through the speakers or anything. It genuinely was an indescribable moment. I still get goose bumps thinking about it now.”
Arsenal gave those two pieces of modern Gunners history a second outing at their end-of-season celebration in north London – a gesture not lost on fans.
“I was there to see our tifos at the trophy parade, and I’ve genuinely never experienced anything like that in my life, and I can’t imagine I ever will again. It was like the perfect storm of emotions in that moment, and that’s a feeling you can never take away from me.”
Modern tifos might not be as rough around the edges as when they first appeared in southern Europe, but they remain – as they should – the canvas of the fans. It will be fun to see what they come up with this season.
