Some of you may know that I'm rather fanatical about World Cup soccer. Well, this is the third year that I've been in a Latin American country during the World Cup... where people actually get EXCITED about the games!
Of course, I root for Mexico (and Honduras this year since they made it to the Cup, but didn't get very far...). Sorry folks, USA just doesn't do justice to soccer... Anyhow, I had the opportunity to spend the Mexico games in really fun ways...
JP and I watched the opening World Cup game - Mexico/South Africa - at home after getting up early for the opening ceremony. It was a 1-1 tie.
I went downtown (JP had to work!) for the Mexico/France game... the absolute BEST soccer game I've EVER seen... EVER! Probably about 2000 people gathered in a plaza (Plaza de Armas, the dog fountain one where they put the frogs, for those of you who know QRO) with a big screen with the game on it. This is a plaza that's right in front of the State Capitol building, and even the governor came out to watch the game! I didn't take my camera with me, and I took some picture with my phone, but JP is the one who knows how to get them onto the computer and we haven't done that yet... It was crazy during the game! My favorite player - Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez - scored a goal and everyone was jumping up and down, and pretty much there was no one actually sitting in the chairs provided by this time... Then, Cuauhtemoc got a penalty shot, and about 10 camera men were standing up on a huge flower bed trying to get the reaction of the governor during the penalty shot, and people were screaming at them to get down because they completely blocked the screen!! Finally the governor yelled at them to get down, so they did, right before the penalty shot GOAL. Mexico won to France 2-0!
And for Mexico/Uruguay, which was a tuesday during church working hours, Pastor Martin brought tamales and cokes for everyone and we crowded into his office (where the best TV reception is!) to watch the game with "tortas de tamal" or tamal sandwiches, show below. It's just a regular tamal in a bread roll with extra salsa and cream. It REALLY fills you up!
Unfortunately, Mexico lost. But we still made it into the "octavos" (eight finals?)
For the Mexico/Argentina game, we actually changed the church services around because we were supposed to have KidStuf program at 1:30, which was the game time, and we knew NO ONE would come to KidStuf then, so we just did KS twice, once in each service, and watched the game on the screens in the auditorium after. It was such a sad game... We lost 3-1 to Argentina... EXACT same thing that happened in the 2006 World Cup. So, that left Mexico disqualified.
I'm rooting for Brasil now... I was IN Brasil in 2002 when they won, and THAT was super crazy, you can't even believe it!
Now, go watch some World Cup games, even though your country is disqualified! (assuming my readers are from USA and Australia!)
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