What new? Yanks beat Mexicans in soccer

It may seem counter intuitive, but the U.S. mens soccer team actually dominate a world power in soccer : Mexico. For the eight straight time last night, the U.S. shut out their World Cup rivals in the States. They are now 8-2-1 in the last 11 games.

Mexico had the 20th century; the U.S. seems to have the 21st. Now remember: the state of soccer in Mexico is on a greater level than in the U.S. The Mexican League is, overall, a much stronger and richer league than MLS. Everybody knows who the national team players and coaches are in Mexico. However, the trend is apparent in this regional rivalry: arriba los Americanos, and Mexico down.

But there is another strange anomaly: The 60,000 strong crowd in Arizona was passionately supporting…………….Mexico. The fact is, the millions of Mexicans in the USA (10% of all Mexican citizens live in the USA) have and have shown more passion for the national team than the hundreds of millions of Americans here. Even @ Chicago Fire home games against Mexican clubs, the Section 8 Fire supporters club, get pelted and harassed the whole game (they love the attention). It can be a little humilating to play games in the States and still be outsupported 5-1 in terms of crowd size and noise.

One can think of the last World Cup where Champion Italy beat every team they played except one : the Yanks. The USA were helped in a large measure by the tremendous crowd support they recieved from Americans @ the nearby U.S.A. military base. Think also about the support of the crowd in Columbus where the U.S. beat Mexico in World Cup qualifying in 2001. U.S. Soccer played it smart that year and scheduled the game in the city that had the least amount of Mexicans they could get, and then steered tickets towards certain U.S. fans. It was the least support the Mexican team has ever had in a game in the US.

But these incidents are too few. It's a work in progress, and its taking decades, but the terrible USA-Mexico results of my youth (1-10-1 for 70’s and 80’s) are long gone. But the work-in-progress of soccer in America continues.