Mexico is ready for some football
Mexico is ready for some football
They call them the “49s” here. The “Cuarenta Nueves.” No “ers,” as they’re known north of the border. They’re not quite the team of choice, either, but that’s understood when games of the Dallas Cowboys have been televised here for years.
“Vaqueros and the Raiders,” said Moises Andrade, a chauffeur, when asked his favorites in the pros. But it’s the “49s” and the “Cardenales de Arizona,” who Sunday night face each other in what will be the first league game in the 83-year history of the NFL to be played outside the United States.
Or, as written in Spanish on the huge banner in the lobby of the Intercontinental El Presidente Hotel, “Temporada Regular, Nuestro Premier Juego.”
“Our first regular season game.”
Futbol Americano, as opposed to futbol, soccer. Which always will be No.1.
A Mexican youth soccer team beat Netherlands in the semifinals of the Under-17 world competition Thursday, and not only did it make the frontpages, but also in one daily the kids were called “Ninos Heroes,” Boy Heroes, an allusion to the six military cadets who in 1847 leaped to their death when Chapultepec Castle was under siege by, yes, the United States.
And now, in what surely is a bit of irony, the U.S., the “norteamericanos,” are invading once more, bringing their game to the largest (17million to 22million population, depending on the source) and highest (7,350 feet, and no argument about that number) city north of the Panama Canal.
Not that the game doesn’t have roots in Mexico. Colleges and universities play it, just as they do in the States, and the big rivalry is the Pumas of the University of Mexico against the Burros of Polytechnic Institute.
They met the other night before 35,000 at Estadio Azteca, where the Niners and Cardinals will play before a predicted 85,000. As compared to the crowd of 112,376 that saw a Cowboys-Houston Oilers exhibition in 1994.
A fascinating place Mexico City, the Distrito Federal, Federal District, or “De Efe,” translated as D.F., a region full of contradictions.
You can’t drink the water, not that this has changed through the centuries, but you can run on a treadmill at the Nikko Hotel and watch ESPN showing Damian Jackson’s hit that gave the Padres a 1-0 win over the Giants.
You’re told the air pollution is so bad living here is like smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, but on Thursday the weather was so clear and clean you could see, if not forever, then at least the monuments all the way down Paseo de Reforma.
You’re advised not to wander too far from the hotel, but down at the Zocalo, the largest public square next to Red Square, thousands of tourists, shoppers and locals are swirling about in a joyful blend of humanity. That the “policia” wear bullet-proof vests seems not at all important.
On the second-floor terrace of the National Palace, where Diego Rivera’s adamant and brilliant murals of Mexican history are painted, a journalist finds a gentleman wearing an old 49ers T-shirt, with a faded likeness of Jerry Rice.
He would love to go to the game, but the tickets, priced between $25 and $78, are too expensive. He will, however, watch on television, which must please executives from the NFL as they try to find new markets.
A team in Mexico? Not in the immediate future. Hell, the NFL can’t even get a team in Los Angeles. But more league games in Mexico are a certainty. Think how many T-shirts and jersies can be sold in a metropolitan area of 22million.
“We’re clearly making an investment in this game,” Roger Goodell, the league’s chief operating officer said, “because we think it’s the right think to do.” As if the NFL ever was concerned with propriety.
They’re making an investment, because of the financial potential. Already, the NFL owns Sundays on television in Mexico as it does in the U.S. A lady on the flight from San Francisco, a Mexican citizen, complained her husband and his pals hole up for hours to drink beer and watch football.
A billboard at the Hard Rock Cafe in the Polanco District says “Lunes,” Spanish for Monday, and then underneath in English, “Monday Night Football on television.”
It’s not the big sport here, as it is to the north, but it’s big enough to put 85,000 people in the seats, and how do you criticize that?
Art Spander has earned a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He can be reached at typoes@aol.com.
Source: insidebayarea.com
