Presumed Entitled: Mexican Soccer and the Mexican Middle Class

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.

Rise Up and Sing Mexico

This weekend I saw the Mexican band Cafe Tacuba, here in the Mexican capital of the Midwest, Chicago. It is a band I have long loved and it was my second time seeing them, the first being over a decade ago at Slim's in San Francisco.

About 18 years ago while in college I discovered the band. While going through a bit of discovery around my ethnic identity, embracing my Latinidad and Mexicanidad—I still feel strongly for both and for my American-ness, too—and also while going through a very rough break-up, a friend who lived in the residence hall next to mine suggested that the drama I was experiencing reminded her of Café Tacuba’s song, Esa Noche.

The song tells of love lost, but how ironically enough, as you lose your love you find a new one, and just as the old love returns realizing what she had given up, you find that you have moved on.  The song ends on an ambiguous note because it is not clear whether the newfound love is actually a person or whether it is loneliness and solitude that the singer has embraced.

The band Café Tacuba, started in the late 80s as Mexico slowly emerged from financial crisis, is itself a band of ambiguity: from its androgynous lead singer, and his lovingly insulting identity-Pinche Juan (Fucking Juan-among other names that Rubén Isaac Albarrán Ortega has gone by such as Cosmé and Anonymous), its mixture of genres and eras in music, to its embracing of both street culture and slang and high poetry.

There is a whole list of bands from Mexico that are simultaneously modern and traditional. Distinctively Mexican (rancheras, cumbia, mariachi), hip hop, metal, and rock and roll all at once: Lila Downs, Julieta Venegas, Café Tacuba, Rodrigo and Gabriela, to name just a few.

To me this mixture can be seen on other parts of Mexican culture. Daniel Hernandez, the editor of the Mexico City edition of the fashion, art, and music magazine, Vice, describes in great detail the raging Mexican cultural evolution in his book about youth in Mexico, “Down and Delirious in Mexico City.” He describes a fashion scene that rivals Paris, tribes of urban youth with creativity that rivals youth in Los Angeles and New York City, and how this explosion of cultural production is related to Mexico’s struggle to break through into the first world with its growing middle class.

One of the best chapters in the book is about Emo culture. Emos can roughly be described as somewhat effeminate, depressed, youth who perform their emotions through their clothes and taking over of public spaces where other youth hang out such as plazas and malls. There is a strong reaction against them, to the point that they are attacked and beaten. Hernandez struggles to figure out what this reaction is about. He concludes that it is that much of who they are is self-centered and superficial; they are suburban and middle-class, and while they are described as a tribe of their own, there is not much that unifies them at all other than their own existential angst about the banal. Other groups who define themselves more substantively deride them for this shallow attempt at trying to occupy a social space in Mexico. Other groups see them as insincere, as standing for nothing, as copying the styles of others without truly understanding the underlying meaning of those styles. What Hernandez notes most of all is that Emos seem to be representing the emptiness that often comes after all of your basic needs are met—he has a bit of an epiphany when he realizes that many of these youth come from middle class homes and are dropped off at the Zócalo in cars or that they hang out at affluent malls.

Mexicans love their suffering. It is integral to their identity. They rightfully own this privilege as they have long had much to suffer about. They certainly still do, as we saw a weekend where teachers have protested the capitalistic reforms that the government is imposing on schools, a year where students from upper-middle class backgrounds have demonstrated against government corruption and rigged politics in the “Yo Soy 132” movement, where the return of the PRI makes one wonder if the country will ever be able to move to a more democratic system, to the continued drug violence that has ensnarled parts of the country for nearly a decade.

That said, Mexico has experienced steady economic growth for several years now, despite the larger downturn worldwide. It has slowed as of late, but it is healthy nonetheless. But there is the ever-present worry of moving backward, and perhaps even scarier is the worry of moving forward into the unknown. This is especially true when that future has its own set of downsides. Suddenly having money, or democracy, or “high art” may seem glamorous, but it comes with a fight to find meaning and purpose or to be faced with no meaning at all.

The crowd at the concert was interesting because it represented many sides of Mexico. There were recent immigrants wearing cowboy boots and leather belts, women with strong indigenous features wearing mini-skirts and high heels, incongruent with what is typically worn at a rock concert. There were children as young as five and some pre-teens there with their parents (at a concert taking place at 9pm on a Friday). There were hipsters with ear gauges, piercings and tattoos, some who appeared and sounded like they had only recently arrived from Mexico and others who spoke only English.  I can only imagine the various social classes from where people came, paying for $50 tickets and $7 beers, for some just another night out, for others their only night out this year.

It was really unclear for a moment what the individuals in this motley crew had in common. But then the music blared-a techno march, a polka, in Spanish, in Chicago, and the crowd heaved up in down, in unison, sweaty, all Mexican, and something yet to be determined. Like the song, love was lost, and a new one has been found, but it is lonely and unknown.

"Mi Soledad siempre he pertenecido a ti
Ay Soledad! siempre he pertenecido a ti"

Que Viva.

Mexico vs. United States Tonight: It Doesn't Matter Whose Side You're On, They Are Almost the Same Team

Tonight is a critical World Cup qualifying match for both the United States and Mexican men’s national teams. They are meeting up in Columbus, Ohio, where the United States team has been undefeated in international play. This is not a guarantee of victory as just a year ago Mexico lost for the first time ever at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City-to the United States. With the possibility of missing out on the 2014 World Cup in Brazil after recent losses by both squads, the stakes will be high and the play should be intense.

While soccer teams typically field 11 players per side, there may actually be as many as 13 or 14 Mexican nationals on the field at some points during the game. This is because there are five players of Mexican-descent on the United States team and several of them have dual citizenship. One of the players, Edgar Castillo (Puebla), even played for the Under 23 national team of Mexico from 2007 to 2008. Due to the fact that he never played at the senior level he was able to switch to the United States team in 2009 according to the rules of the international soccer governing body, FIFA.

Omar Gonzalez (LA Galaxy), Michael Orozco (Puebla), Joe Corona (Club Tijuana), and Jose Torres (Tigres) comprise the other Mexican-descent players on the 23-man U.S. roster. Together they represent 22% of the U.S. team, much higher than the proportion of Mexican-descent individuals in the U.S., which is just over 10%. This is not that surprising given that the U.S. has long struggled to make soccer catch on among the mainstream public and that Mexican immigrants to the U.S. bring with them the passion of their country’s most popular sport.

What is really surprising is that the addition of Latino and specifically Mexican players to the U.S. Men’s National Team is only a fairly recent development. Not too long ago, the great U.S. forward Clint Dempsey, was the closest we could get to Mexican roots on the U.S. team. His claim to fame was that he grew up in Texas and learned his style of attacking soccer playing with his mostly Mexican peers in leagues created and dominated by that ethnic group. While many of these players were never recognized beyond their local leagues, Clint had the good fortune of also playing on an organized traveling team in Dallas, which was how he was recruited to college and eventually recognized by the National Team scouts.

Except for the training in less recognized Mexican leagues, Dempsey’s ascent has been the typical route for United States soccer players. This summer I had a conversation about this with my uncle, who coaches a pretty successful high school soccer team in a largely immigrant and working class Chicago suburb that is predominantly Mexican. He lamented that despite being only a few hundred feet from where a Major League Soccer team plays, a team that sometimes actually used the high school field for practice, the coaches and scouts failed to recognize the immense talent of his players.

My uncle explained that rather than look at the high school level for talent, or even younger, scouts followed the same model of player development that we see in basketball and football: colleges are the de facto minor leagues and recruiting sites for players. The problem with this is that many Latino players who may not be college bound are overlooked. Their careers reach a glass ceiling in Sunday leagues as they work in blue-collar jobs.

In the United States, soccer has long been a game of the elite, played at prep schools and more recently in highly organized and expensive suburban leagues with a mostly white demographic. This gave rise to the idea of the soccer mom, a highly invested parent who has the abundant resources to invest in the recreation of her children. While the financial and time resources of soccer parents are high, what they do not have much of is a deep understanding of soccer and an appreciation for the artistry and creativity in the game.

For these children, soccer may lead to an athletic scholarship at a reputable university, but more than anything it serves as a way to a free education rather than athletic development as it does in NCAA football and basketball. So, these players move into white-collar jobs debt free, seeing this as their path to prosperity rather than through professional sports. Without a powerful domestic professional league to jump into, it is no wonder that they don’t operate as basketball and football players do. Not that they should, as that model is fraught with problems of exploiting the status of “amateur” students to make money for the university. But there are other ways.

A possibility is to emulate the developmental leagues in Europe and Latin America, where children as young as 9 and 10 play on teams sponsored by professional teams with the idea that talent will be recognized early and youth will be trained into future superstars. These youth teams scout each other and offer paths to the most elite leagues in the world. Lionel Messi of Argentina was recognized this way by Barcelona as an eleven year old. In fact, the MLS has begun to take this very approach.

It sometimes takes a more concerted approach and a strong and wise leader to take advantage of this new infrastructure. The United States seems to have this in Jurgen Klinsmann, the former German soccer superstar and current coach of the National Team. He has noted that he would really like to develop a unique homegrown American style of soccer and that a big part of that is looking to some of the greatest American young soccer talent, Latinos.

Some, like former National Team player Alexi Lalas, have suggested that American (white) players would be excluded with such an approach, but he seems to be missing the point about just who is an American. Focusing on bringing up Latinos may be just what the United States needs to truly develop an American style. And for those Mexican-descent children who find that they may have been looked over in their, they can still have a chance for soccer glory south of the border-it may be just the remedy that Mexican soccer needs as well. And they may already be on this path; they have two American-born players on their squad in Carlos Salcido and Isaac Brizuela. It may not matter who you cheer for at all tonight.