This morning I woke up at 5am because I could not sleep any longer. I think I was excited to find out the result of Mexico’s soccer match against New Zealand. The game was played on the Kiwis’ home turf, so the game occurred live at midnight local time. My excitement came from the fact that this would be the final opportunity for the Mexican Men’s National Team to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
The Mexican team was playing the second of a two-game playoff to decide which of these national teams would advance to the finals next summer. Mexico has long been a soccer powerhouse in the North American region, qualifying easily at the top of the list of its competitors. The expectation at the beginning of the qualifying stage for the upcoming World Cup was no different. The Mexican Under-17 team won the World Cup for that age group in 2011 and in 2012 the Mexican Men beat Brazil with authority at the London Olympics, enabling them to bring home a gold medal. Given that some of the very same players who brought home these championships would be playing for Mexico in the lead up to the tournament for the ultimate soccer prize, hopes were justifiably high. But the team seemed to implode, scoring infrequently, losing numerous matches, and most notably for true fans, playing really ugly soccer; the game after all is known as the “beautiful game,” as just as much credit is given to teams who play artfully and tie or even lose, as is given to victors.
Mexico’s biggest soccer embarrassments this year related to the United States. First, they lost twice to the United States at Azteca Stadium, a location where the Mexican team had never lost before to ANY team. The embarrassment was compounded by several facts. The U.S. team has historically been very weak at soccer, although in the past 20 years, since the U.S. hosted the World Cup, the team has slowly but surely improved, giving many world soccer powers a run for their money. Within the past 10 years they emerged as Mexico’s main competitors in the North American soccer region, also known as CONCACAF. This rivalry, like many in soccer, had lots to do with politics and history off the field. Mexico has had to live in the shadow of the United States since half of its territory was taken during the Mexican-American War. Many Mexicans see its poverty, corruption, drug problems, and the outmigration of its citizens as more than a little bit related to American imperialism. The one area where Mexico has been able to maintain supremacy has been on the soccer pitch; however, that all changed this year with the U.S. qualifying at the top of the region. And to add further insult, Mexico was all but eliminated from the tournament with a resounding loss to Costa Rica, and was only saved in the very last minutes by the fact that the Americans beat Panama. The U.S. win did not allow Mexico to qualify, but only to play New Zealand in the playoff for an at-large spot at the World Cup.
So, in the wee hours of the morning, before work and before the kids woke up, I watched as Mexico regained its footing, albeit against an opponent that had very little chance of winning. After a first game win of 5-1, Mexico won again with a score of 4-2, thus sending them to Brazil. In the post game analysis, one of the ESPN announcers noted that a big part of Mexico’s lackluster effort appeared to be psychological. Having tasted recent high profile victories, Mexico lost one of its greatest attributes: hard work.
Many of the players who played on the national team for most of the tournament were remarkable because they represented a truly elite level of play measured by their club teams. Mexican players usually play only in Mexico’s league. The Mexican Soccer League (La Liga MX) is one of the better leagues in the world, but it is not among the elite. The elite leagues include the English Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, and the Italian Serie A. These leagues pay in the tens of millions of dollars for the best players from around the world to play in their countries. Mexican players only recently have been represented at this level on sizable scale. The Mexican coach for most of the qualifying round understandably relied on these players as the backbone of his team. While these players had immense natural talent, they seemed to sleep on the field, indifferent and dispassionate to the reality that they were regularly losing. This ultimately cost the players a space on the roster and the two coaches who stood steadfastly by them their jobs.
The ESPN analyst said that the iteration of the team that existed prior to the New Zealand matches surely had skill, but suffered from what he called, “entitlement.” They thought that they didn’t have to work to get to the finals. They had become accustomed to being winners and no longer had the hunger to strive or struggle.
In Spanish, a term that is used to characterize the affluent is “presumido,” which literally means presumed. More figuratively it means arrogant or conceited. But, to presume that one is great before having put in the work is fitting here.
It is interesting to me that this recent success has had a paradoxical effect. The soccer team also seems to be a microcosm of Mexican society as a whole. The use of soccer as a metaphor for a country’s collective character and identity is not new; just this Saturday the New York Times profiled prominent Mexican author, Juan Villoro, who is known for using soccer as a metaphor to explain Mexico. The New York Times then ran a piece on Tuesday that focused on Mexico’s emerging, yet fragile middle class. This topic has been in the news quite a bit over the past year. It runs counter to the long-held narrative that Mexico is a completely poor, third world country; rather, now it is truly an emerging economy. But much like its soccer team, there are paradoxical effects, such as increased obesity, a sense of anomie and despair, and quite frankly some frivolous laziness, as was seen in the hit film about a Mexican upper class family, “We are the Nobles.” In that film a self-made father tricks his insolent children into getting jobs, so they can reconnect with the value of self-reliance and work. I hope that Mexico will take this lesson to heart if it is ever to achieve the greatness that seems to always elude it. But based on a recent trip to Mexico, I fear that classism and arrogance may rise, for I witnessed it firsthand, and Mexico will only have achieved a devil’s bargain.
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