Football

It is fair to say that Mexicans are as passionate about football as Canadians are about hockey. Every little town in the country sports at least one football field, often without grass, and any weekend will inevitable see at least one match with the local team defending its honor and everyone out to cheer them on. It is a fiesta atmosphere and the unheralded cooks all over this country are there with their taco, soup, and tamale stands at the ready.

Kids of all ages proudly sport the colors of their favorite national team with shirts or scarves – Pumas, Chivas, Tigres, Pachuca to name only a few of the most popular. While these teams are ostensibly university teams, it is clearly an industry run by professionals, and money is of course firmly behind it all.

This is the height of the football season with a number of tournaments coming up to finals. There are league, inter-league, inter-Latin American and international matches that capture the imagination of millions of Mexicans every weekend. Passionate as they are however, Mexico has failed to advance beyond the quarterfinals in World Cup play and were summarily defeated 2-0 by, perish the thought, the USA in 2002 in spite of strong support by sombrero sporting Korean fans. In addition to those upstarts to the north they have always had to contend with the likes of Brazil and Argentina to the south. Losing in international play has almost the same affect on the Mexican psyche as it does on Canadians when they lose an important international hockey match.

This Sunday Mexico will host the USA team in a near classic match that will have importance to the standings, (using arithmetic that only the Europeans understand), for the upcoming World Cup in Germany next year. A loss will not eliminate their entry chances entirely but would be a setback. While many Mexicans still find it hard to take Americans playing soccer seriously there is no question that the Mexican team is carrying a huge national load on their shoulders. And while Mexicans are generally quite used to being beaten up by the USA, when it comes to soccer the pill would be a bitter one indeed. All eyes and ears in this country will be tuned while in the USA the match will go all but unnoticed. After all the US University basketball championships are in their final gasps. Go Pumas!