By Bill Saporito
Mr. Saporito is a contributor to the editorial board.
June 26, 2018
Millions of Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigrants are absolutely kvelling (O.K., that’s not Spanish) over the team’s success in soccer’s World Cup.
The team, known as El Tri, as in Mexico’s national “tricolor” of red, white and green, took care of the defending world champion Germany as well as South Korea before it plays Sweden Wednesday morning to try to advance to the second round. The star forward, Carlos Vela, is well known in the United States, as he has a day job playing for Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Football Club. Other teammates also play in the M.L.S.
These notable immigrants are being cheered on in record numbers in the United States. The Miami-based network Telemundo, which has Spanish-language rights to the World Cup in the United States, reported that it scored 7.4 million viewers, on television and elsewhere, for Mexico’s upset of Germany on Sunday, which was three million more than watched on Fox, the English-language rights holder. Fox, too, scored record viewership, and the announcers for the Mexico-Germany game included Mariano Trujillo, a former Mexican national team member who easily switched to English to provide insights for his Anglo viewers.
Like all blended families, the relationship between the Mexican national team and its American supporters is complicated. Take, for instance, the fact that the team’s marketing and promotion is handled by Soccer United Marketing, which is a division of Major League Soccer. It’s strictly business. S.U.M. can maximize revenue and exposure for El Tri by booking it into venues such as AT&T Stadium in Dallas, where the team routinely sells out its 80,000 seats when it plays against other nations. The games are carried by ESPN, in English and Spanish. And yes, fans of El Tri love their Cowboys, too, one reason the N.F.L. plays games south of the border.
El Tri’s passionate American following has caused no small amount of consternation at U.S. Soccer over the years. The United States has sometimes been left feeling as if it were the away team in some American cities with large Mexican populations. The irritation level grew so much that U.S. Soccer began scheduling games against Mexico in Columbus, Ohio — in February — to try to cool the Mexican heat. And that strategy has worked, with the U.S. consistently beating Mexico with scores of 2-0, so that “dos a cero” became a rallying cry.
Until this year. The United States failed to qualify for the World Cup after a humiliating defeat in Trinidad and Tobago before 1,500 fans in the last qualifying game. Mexico, on the other hand, not only qualified but is playing beyond expectations.
The team’s success is registering in Mexico, of course — celebrations were recorded on seismology meters — but also in every Mexican-American community in the United States.
But it also demonstrates how Mexico, and Mexican-Americans, are deeply entwined in the fabric that is America. And part of that fabric is soccer, which is now America’s most popular sport by participation.
We owe some of that popularity to Mexico. That’s one reason the American soccer star Landon Donovan decided to throw his support to El Tri. To say Mr. Donovan was detested by Mexico’s fans in his national team days would be an understatement. To say he has financial interest in his support — he did a pro-Mexico commercial for Wells Fargo, a Mexican team sponsor — is a fair point. But Mr. Donovan also walked the talk.
He recently came out of retirement for a short stint with the Mexican league team Club León and moved his family there to embrace the culture. It was natural for him, and he was welcomed. He grew up playing with Mexican-Americans in California and speaks fluent Spanish. “I don’t believe in walls,” he said at the time.
