VIVA LA PLAGA
Did anyone watch the U.S.-Mexico Gold Cup Final on Saturday night at the Rose Bowl? I did, with my Dad, in Texas, USA on Univision in Espanol (ESPN was showing race car highlights).We listened to commentary of former US player Marcelo Balboa as a commentator (with his Argentine accent), cringed every time Mexican fans yelled "PUTO!" when US keeper Tim Howard took a goal kick, and talked about how much it sucked to watch the Rose Bowl - a slice of Americana, historic college football games and 4th of July celebrations - fill with 80,000 Mexican fans out of 93,000 in attendance.
This was a tournament final in the US of A with the US of A national team playing, yet the game turned into a Mexican home game. Unsurprisingly, Mexico, which is the better team, won 4-2. The trophy celebration was held in Spanish and after the game Howard said:
"CONCACAF should be ashamed of themselves. I think it was a fucking disgrace that the entire postmatch ceremony was in Spanish. You can bet your ass that if we were in Mexico City, it wouldn't be all in English."
http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/soccer/news/story?id=6705473
Bill Plaschke (Around the Horn) wrote a column called "Red, White and Booo" about the fans at the game.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-0626-plaschke-gold-cup-20110626,0,7072114.column
My question is: Where else in the world would this happen? What other national team in the world is Booed on their home turf by an overwhelming majority of opposing fans?
I've tried to answer this. I've looked up immigration stats and tried to think of other scenarios. For certain events, there'd probably be a lot of Turkish fans at a game in Germany, Ukranian fans in Russia or Bangladeshis in attendence in India (perhaps for cricket). But it doesn't compare. We are the porous borders "Come one, come all" capital of the world.
And watching the Gold Cup final on Saturday night, I suddenly became pissed off, xenophobic and Arizonian. Home for 10 days and watching the news about unemployment, the economy, the 2012 elections, etc, and then Saturday night decidely thinking "Immigration IS a problem". Nowhere in the world do immigrants enter a country to suckle at a Teet more than they do on Uncle Sam's. Trust me, I live in Central America, which is essentially an udder from the US that everyone is trying to nurse from (see foreign investment, the Panama Canal and banana republics)
This is long, yes, I know.
I titled this "Viva La Plaga" because, as a joke, Gringos living in Central and South America are known as "La Plaga" or "the plague" because we infiltrate these countries with young drunken tourists, shitty Spanish and entitled mannerisms.
Well, at least we don't call your goalkeeper a "Bitch" every time he takes a goal kick on his home field. I'd like to think we have a little more class than that.
