I walked into a small Mexican restaurant outside of Detroit to take in the game. I wanted to be surrounded by exclusively Spanish speaking patrons praying to the patron saint of Mexico City, Saint Philip of Jesus, while sipping warm Patron in a dank and musty bar. I wanted to be around people who remember the chills of elation and fear brought on by a Jorge Campos run. I wanted to be around people who liked soccer even when it’s not on ESPN. But mostly, I didn’t want to go to B-Dubs and have the wait staff change the game midway through the second half to show a crap Tigers game (baseball is the worst).
Before getting to the converted bodega my friends and I made our plans on Facebook – why call or text when we could have a full convo flaunting our awesome plans in front of our socially inept friends. Our Facebook convo removed a layer of rooting-interest-anonymity and put our Mexican national team support on full display. My moods are not dictated by the success or failings of a specific sports team because I am not really tied to a specific sports team. Other than the Detroit Lions, a team I am loyal to because of the Detroit Lions onesie my mother bought me when I was five, I root for players, not teams. Or I root against players or a fan base. My method of fandom excludes my from the levels of elation attained by the die-hard fans but it also helps me rebound way quicker to epic losses – while my friends are drinking in the corner mourning the collapse of The Red Wings I’m on the dance floor doing the robot while ladies question my sexuality.
Qualifications aside, Mexico had my support on Saturday night. But people on Facebook decided to question my patriotism and the patriotism of my friends. We received some pretty blistering messages. My friend Dan, who happens to be Mexican, was told to go back if he wasn’t rooting for the US team. People were legitimately upset with us, over a fucking soccer match.
We didn’t care and we rooted against the U.S. team as hard as we could while sipping Patron and high fiving Mexican cooks and waiters. The Mexican national team played better, they played with more flair (whatever that means), and they were way more entertaining than the Landon Donovan-centric attack the U.S. employs. The Mexican team lost a third of its team to a prostitution and performance-enhancing-drug scandal. The Mexican team had the most talented and most famous player. The Mexican team was more interesting – and that was it, my 3-hour Chicharito allegiance is not a referendum on my nationalism.
The times when sport ascends to a “miracle on ice” level is very rare – as evidenced by the memorable names we assign to those events. But the other 98% of sports are just a bunch of guys (or girls, I guess) fucking around on a field.
I am patriotic and so are my friends. And so are the golf announcers who performed verbal fallacio on Rory McIlory building him up as the anti-Tiger during the U.S. open. And so are the legions of fans that got German-chubbies for Dirk and his slaying of the evil, and mostly American, Miami Heat. And so are the NBA sports-writers who gave Nash a couple MVPs at the expense of the “rapey” American Kobe Bryant. And so are the tennis fans who hate the Williams sisters for their lax tennis attitude. And so are the boxing purists who are rooting for the arrogant Mayweather to receive his comeuppance at the small hands of Pacquiao. And so are the ass-bags who rooted against the Iverson-led national team because of their perceived thuggery. Or is there and underlying current of cultural dissimilation that makes it okay to root against a team of minorities regardless of the stars and stripes… probably not, right? Well, either way, I was a patriotic American who rooted for a group of Mexican guys on a Saturday night while drinking in Detroit. Now, I’m going to go light $800 worth of illegal fireworks in my backyard to celebrate my patriotism.
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