Wild times at the Mexico-U.S. soccer game

Okay, so yeah. We didn’t win. But that’s okay — going to the game yesterday was probably the coolest thing I’ve done here, even if I did get doused with beer. And who knows, we might have been doused with other things, if we would have worn U.S. jerseys. Instead Crayton and I wore red-and-white striped Chivas shirts and kept quiet.

It was a spectacle, though. Thousands and thousands of fans, almost everyone wearing green Mexico jerseys, blowing into horns that made them sound like an angry mass of bees.

Here’s a short video I took that shows what it was like walking in.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyyNxoikO64&hl=en&fs=1&]

And a few more pictures…

The bomb squad was there, just in case.

We sat in the middle section, behind the American goal in the first half. A helpful Estadio Azteca seat-finder led us to our spot and then asked for a tip.

Then my vocabulary lesson began. When the American goalie kicked the ball across the field, everyone stomped in their seats and yelled, “Ahhhhh….. puutoooooo!” And the guy behind me grumbled: “Putísimo.” (For the non-Spanish speakers, puto basically means “whore.”) Also heard a lot of, “El otro lado, cabrón!” and “Síguela, guey!”

It was weird to not be vocally rooting for anyone. But when Mexico scored their second goal, the whole stadium erupted. Cascades of beer fell from the sky. The guy in front of us, with “Cuau” painted on his back (an abbreviation for Cuauhtemoc Blanco, number 10), kicked his beer cup into the air, an arc of cerveza falling on the folks in front of him. Everyone hugged and laughed and yelled.

Just so you know, I captured a video of this, too, but my Internet connection is so slow that YouTube estimates four hours for it to upload. Ugh. More pictures for you instead:

We left the stadium a little early, not wanting to get caught in the rush of drunk fans. (Did I mention they don’t sell water at this stadium? Only beer, Coke and Fresca.) Got home, exhausted, around 8 p.m. The city had closed off Reforma, a gigantic boulevard near our house, for the celebrating fans.