To Heck with the Swine Flu -- Mexico's REAL Tragedy!

Futbol Tragedy
Sooner or later -- and probably sooner -- Mexicans are going to lose one of the few things they have left to brag about: their soccer dominance over the United States.
BY ANDRÉS MARTINEZ | AUGUST 11, 2009

Barack Obama and a number of his cabinet members are only the second-most prominent American team to descend on Mexico this week (the U.S. president traveled to Guadalajara for the annual "Rodney Dangerfield summit," where Canada and Mexico try to get some respect from their disinterested neighbor). Most Mexicans are paying far more attention to the visit of a different delegation from north of the Rio Grande, the U.S. national soccer team that takes on Mexico in a crucial World Cup qualifying match at Mexico City's imposing Aztec Stadium on Wednesday.


No matter how bad things were at any given time, and no matter how powerless their country appeared in the shadows of the colossus to the north, Mexicans used to count on being able to trounce the gringos at soccer, which kind of made up for everything else. The United States, which for decades failed to qualify for any World Cup, did not beat Mexico once in the world's most popular sport between 1934 and 1980.

I grew up in Mexico, and I can tell you: Games in the 1970s and '80s were so one-sided they were painful to watch. Think the U.S. "dream team" taking on ... well, Mexico, at basketball. Back then, the disparity in playing levels between the countries was so great that I can recall feeling like Pelé when playing against Americans my age at summer camp, even though I was nothing exceptional back home.

All that has changed, of course, as the popularity of soccer exploded in the United States, at least as a youth activity. In the last two decades, the U.S.-Mexico rivalry for regional supremacy has become one of the fiercest in all international soccer. And the United States has gained the upper hand more recently in head-to-head matchups, though it has yet to win in Mexico City. Ever.

Which is why Wednesday's match is huge. Only three countries from the Caribbean, Central American, and North American regions will qualify for next year's World Cup in South Africa (a fourth could sneak in, but I will spare you the details). Despite an impressive win against the Americans in New York last month, Mexico has been floundering in this round of World Cup qualifying matches, losing to the likes of Costa Rica and Honduras. The Americans are doing far better, and there is much anxiety in Mexico that in this year of epochal plagues (severe U.S. recession + swine flu virus = GDP plummeting at a more than 10 percent rate last quarter, and that's not even mentioning the drug wars) the gringos could finally conquer "El Tricolor" in Mexico City, a trauma that could jeopardize Mexico's ticket to the World Cup.