A Match Made in Houston...

Holy cow. I'm tired. I'm horse. I'm sore. Last night, I lost my mind on more than one occasion. To recap, The J.A.T. made its first live broadcast at last nights USA vs. Mexico soccer match played at Relient Stadium in Houston, Texas. It was unbelieveble. First of all, that stadium was HUGE, and it was filled with MEXICANS. My initial estimate was 2:1 in favor of the foreignors, but that wasn't even close. My best guess after the game was USA- 12,000-15,000 Mexico-55,000-60,000. It was an away game played in our country. That does bother me a little bit, but now is not the time to talk about it. I can't put into words how intense the atmostphere was. I knew it was going to be wild, but it surpassed my expectations. You would not believe the roar of the crowd everytime a Mexican player made a move, or had a scoring oppurtunity. Likewise, the feeling of scoring a goal was unreal. We couldn't run anywhere, so we just jumped, high fived, and hugged any American supportor around. Luckily, we were in a small pocket of 15-20 American supportors, so our celebrations were a bit more intense than many other American fans, but so was our trash talk. The four of us did our part to jeer the other team and let the opposition fan's know how we felt about them, but others around us did better, or dirttier, or extremely more inappropriattier (not a word). But it was awesome. There was a Mexican family sitting to our direct left. We went back and forth the whole game, and it wasn't just "check the scoreboard" talk. To quote my brother right before halftime, "You are UUUUUUUGLY!", to which we recieved to middle fingers as a response. At one point, a women behind us suggested that all the Mexican players were such wimps, they should all wear feminine products. Read between the lines. The rivalary is unlike any you can experience in any other sport. Duke-UNC, Texas-A&M, Ohio State-Michigan, these can't add up to the intensity, the hype, or the atmostphere.

The Officiating was bad. That is an understatement. I will say, it was hard to look at that objectively from where I was, but even so, it was not called evenly. Tim Howard, the American goalkeeper, took things into his own hands by putting one of their flashy strikers in a head lock and taking a swing at him. That was a good part. The last time USA played Mexico was this summer in the Gold Cup Championship. After the game, everyone said how much the rivalry had grown to respect each other, that it wasn't so much hate, as respect now. The guy who said that was an idiot.

I see that I am going a bit long, so I have decided to make this a two part series. There is much more to talk about, and I am going to upload pictures as well. I still want to cover Mexican respect for the country they live in, and the wild experience of trying to live the game, surrounded by Mexican's, singing "God Bless American" as loud as we could.

-American Jig