Soccer….Family Style

Photo credit: Tony Hernandez Photography (https://www.facebook.com/TonyHernandezPhotography)

Here’s the thing: going to Azteca is scary. Mostly because of all the horror stories that people tell you about going to Azteca. “You’re going to get bags of piss thrown on you!” “They throw things at you!” “You’re going to get spit thrown at you!” And on and on and on. I know…I went, Easter Sunday of 2005, and people told me I was insane, that I was going to orphan my baby girl, blah blah blah.

I’m not saying it wasn’t terrifying, walking through rows of riot police, that we didn’t get stuff thrown at us, because my sunglasses were broken when someone threw a coin from the upper deck (that’s right…I went to Azteca back when they sat us in the lower deck! Terminal velocity, baby.)

So I’m really annoyed with this guy, who told Yahoo Sports that he was hit by a flying bottle thrown by a Mexican fan. Because one of my soccer travel buddies, Jimmie Cates, of AO Detroit, saw this guy slip and fall on a seat and bash his head in the fall. So he could have said, “Mexicans threw a bunch of beer, and it made the seat wet, and I slipped and fell.” But that’s not nearly as sexy as being the face of “the abuse American fans suffer (dramatic sigh!) at Azteca,” now is it? By misrepresenting the terrors of Mexico City, you keep others from traveling to support our Yanks, and that pisses me off. A whole big bunch.

So I’m calling you out, bashed in head dude. Your 15 minutes of fame are over. It’s bad enough Mexico can’t win at home, they shouldn’t be lied about, especially when the truth of Azteca is plenty intimidating to most soccer fans. Come clean, and maybe next time, don’t drink so much at altitude.