I am one of those rare Mexicans who never cared about soccer.
My family is from the north-central state of Zacatecas in Mexico, where baseball is king and even volleyball was more popular in my parents’ areas than futbol. The sports idols of my generation of cousins were Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela and boxing champion Julio César Chávez, not Mexican soccer greats Hugo Sánchez and Jorge Campos. Our fathers bought us hats and bats to last the summer, not kits and cleats. I don’t even remember any of us ever having a football – and I have almost a hundred cousins.
The first World Cup I remember was the 1994 edition hosted by the United States, I remember reading most of the Times special preview about the story and collecting some of the commemorative pins that McDonald’s sold. But matches were the background noise in our living room during family events as we splashed around in the pool at our Anaheim home. When the tournament ends at the Rose Bowl, my favorite cousins and my best friend instead catch a baseball game at Angel Stadium and only know about Brazil’s victory over Italy because the people above us in the private suite let us know.
As a sports fan, I paid enough attention to soccer as the decades went by to know who and which team and which sides kept winning – and that was because I enjoyed the excellent EA Sports video game version of it. What made playing football on consoles so exciting – the outstanding number of domestic leagues and international competitions, the fact that every English-language game seems to have a Scottish color commentator, the seeming aimlessness and lack of form on the pitch separated from the glamor of beauty – made it a slogan when watching in real life.
As a reporter, I knew enough about soccer culture to cover stories from viewing parties throughout the Southern California diaspora every World Cup. As a Mexican American, I used to care about the always miserable Mexican team El Tri to watch their run and moan about how we would always have it harder than most. But I haven’t bothered to play other sports since soccer players all over the world have invaded the networks, cable and broadcast channels in recent years.
I never hated this game – it just didn’t move me. But when the final whistle blew for this year’s World Cup final and a third of the packed house at Chapter 1: Modern Bistro went wild, I realized that finally, I was truly a football fan.
Over 104 games, a lot of questionable VAR calls, another tragic collapse of Mexico, a Tom Cruise pregame monologue in the last game and a wonderful goal by Ferran Torres in extra time that allowed Spain to beat Argentina 1-0, I learned a little and heard why soccer is the most popular game in the world, why people watch a billion World Cup with me on Sunday. records in the United States and beyond until the end.
Who would not be touched by the heroic games of the low countries against the traditional powers of the sport, such as small Cabo Verde and ancient Egypt? Who could not feel the joy of seeing young stars meet the hype around them and surpass that – Norway’s Erling Haaland, Spain’s Lamine Yamal, Mexico’s midfielder Gilberto Mora, to name a great player? Who wouldn’t want to interact with fan bases who have anointed the culture and traditions of their good sides and show it to everyone and anyone — I’m doing Viking Row in Norway even as I type.
Who can’t learn from the life lessons that soccer offers – and I’m not talking about the obvious world metaphors? I knew some of them, but I didn’t hold back until I decided to make Chapter One my fun week of the Cup and watch as many games there as possible. I’ve caught so many that I’ve become Manhattan’s walking cocktail party for the summer, and while my gut doesn’t forgive me for a while, my heart and soul have.
One thing I’ve always liked about domestic leagues – well, outside of Major League Soccer – is the relegation system, where the bottom teams in one league alternate with the top teams in a lower league at the end of each season. In the national competitions, what is relevant is how the poor countries should always be compared to the rich ones in order to face the regions and qualifying games that end in the four-year dream that is the World Cup.
That makes soccer a beacon of hope and possibility that few other team sports can offer, especially at a time when the top teams are trying their best to squeeze everyone out of their wealth (that’s why the relegation won’t reach MLS). In a world where the rich run wild, soccer is a reminder that anything really can happen to anyone – you just have to go for it.
Chapter One’s gatherings quickly taught me how the long lulls separated from the fury I once experienced were as moving as a religious experience. It is unlikely that you can feel this by watching one game – but its sequence has the effect of a full conversion.
Joy and songs turned into prayers. Frustrations against opponents and bad referees and shouting from your side to do better was the Spirit that moved you to witness. Text threads between friends became daily satellites. When your team scored, it was like the gift of life itself – I’ve never been in a louder place than when Mexico scored against England, the roar rivaling a jet engine.
When your side loses, like Mexico in the end, it inevitably happens, it was a reminder that we all have to at some point – but we shouldn’t focus on defeat because even though eternal glory is not guaranteed, it is possible. That’s why soccer teaches us that we have to keep going no matter how bad our team has done, no matter how bad things get or life seems hopeless.
After all the Mexico game, the city of Santa Ana has been an amazing expression of happiness that I have ever been lucky enough to join – fireworks, conga lines, street eating or just standing among thousands of strangers and soaking in the middle. It was a revival of people who a year earlier were protesting in anger on those city blocks if they didn’t have shelter in the worst place in Southern California.
Only soccer can cause such a happy rebellion. We should all transfer some of that magic into our daily lives.
And in the midst of all this emotion, I actually watched what happened. I saw talented teams like South Korea collapse under pressure and my favorite Mexico fall bravely against an English team that was taller, faster and better – yet. Haaland’s isolation was a testament to humanity’s need for heroes – but Spain’s final victory through intense passing and selfless teamwork provided an inspiring and convincing rallying point.
Football will probably never replace my love of baseball, soccer, basketball and hockey – but now I can say it in the same breath.
International and professional football is rife with corruption and greed and increasingly embodies the worst tendencies of late-stage capitalism. Yet fans suspend their doubts for a few hours – in a tournament, a season – because they know that the communion that football offers is pure and sacred.
It’s really a game for people. And no amount of Gianni Infantino or inexplicably suspended red cards will ever take that away.
Now that the World Cup is over, my mind is racing about which club teams I should start following and continue my World Cup experience. I already like Bayern Munich because that was the team I chose in EA Sports FIFA 18 (to show how my football knowledge is, I still think James Rodriguez, Thomas Müller and Robert Lewandowski play for them), but who will I get in the Premier League? I can’t make Arsenal even though Chapter One is the official Orange County home of Gooner fans because that would be too obvious – maybe Crystal Palace, which I know nothing about except that it was the name of the Bakersfield music hall owned by country legend Buck Owens?
Zacatecas has never had a successful club team – baseball still rules there, after all – so I think I’ll support Pumas UNAM in honor of all my friends in Mexico City who urged me forever to give soccer a real chance. I don’t really know La Liga teams apart from Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid and FC Barcelona, so I have a lot of learning to do there. And between the Galaxy and LAFC? Well, it’s time for me to catch El Tráfico from home to home and let their support groups do their best for me.
One team I know I’ll be rooting for now: Angel City FC, the LA women’s soccer team that was smart enough to rename itself “The Immigrant City Football Club” last summer during President Trump’s deportation while other city sports teams went silent. And I’m already counting down the months until Brazil hosts the Women’s World Cup a year from now and Chapter One is becoming my Cheers all over again.
Football: It’s been a long time between you and me. But here I am! Get those hydration breaks down, and you have a fanático for life.
