USA-Mexico: A symbiotic clasico - FIFA CONFEDERATIONS CUP
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“We need each other,” goalkeeper Tim Howard told FIFA.com of the simmering rivalry between his USA and Mexico. “It’s not hatred. It’s a mutual respect. We grow as they grow.”
There’s an eloquent wisdom to the Everton No1’s words. So often a tornado of intensity on the field, he cuts quietly to the point. He was a member of the first American side to beat Mexico at their spiritual home, Estadio Azteca, three years ago. And Howard goes to the heart of a great rivalry, where respect, history, animosity, status, proximity and the desire to be great, jumble together in a potent broth.
“We kick each other hard and play so hard against each other because it matters so much,” Howard added, pausing to consider his words.
The two teams will meet for the 66th time on Saturday, a one-off contest in California with much on the line. The Americans, CONCACAF champions in 2013, and holders Mexico will play at the Rose Bowl, site of the 1994 FIFA World Cup™ Final, with a place in the FIFA Confederations Cup Russia 2017 on the line.
Mexican dominance early
Popular notions of the USA-Mexico rivalry do the actual contest no justice. Alexi Lalas, red-haired defender and self-styled troubadour, was kicked in the groin once. Rafa Marquez, Mexico’s battling captain, perhaps should have pulled out of the flying head-butt he aimed at dread-locked Cobi Jones. Maybe it wasn’t wise for Landon Donovan to stir the pot so intently for so many years, acting as a lightning rod in the manner of a pro wrestling villain.
There have been slaps and kicks and disrespect and violence through the 80 years of what current USA coach Jurgen Klinsmann calls “one of the world’s great” rivalries. But there’s more to it than that. In a time when building walls and keeping people apart is in vogue, it’s worth taking a closer look at what it means when Mexico and USA play.
The two first met 80 years ago in Rome, a late qualifier for the 1934 World Cup, which the Americans won. That early moment of glory proved a false dawn, though, as Mexico took a stranglehold on proceedings. In their 21 meetings between 1937 and 1980, Mexico never lost to the USA, winning 18, drawing three and scoring a whopping 90 goals to USA's 20.
In those years, the game the world knows as football was relegated in America to isolated ethnic communities and a handful of elite college campuses. Gridiron and baseball held sway. And while kids in USA tossed pigskins and played sandlot stickball, Mexico’s boys kicked footballs in the streets. For two countries with so much in common, football – in those five decades– belonged to Mexico. Soccer, in the country to the north, was a novelty.
Everything changed in the 1990s, piggy-backing on the sensation of the North American Soccer League in the 1970s and the arrival in America of Pele, Johan Cruyff, Franz Beckenbauer and Eusebio. The World Cup came to American shores in ’94, and the people took note. What came next, Major League Soccer, proved a game-changer. With a top-tier professional league established, USA were ready to stand toe-to-toe with Mexico.
New dawn in the ‘90s
From the dawn of the penultimate decade of the 20th century on, the complexion of the rivalry changed. USA climbed. Mexico worried. An agitation developed among the Mexican players, who suffered the abuse of their own fans who weren’t used to struggling against their neighbours to the north. “They were intense games,” Zague said, a Mexican veteran of some of the toughest games in the rivalry’s history. “I was a target for some very tough tackles, and I never complained or spoke out because it was the way it was played. No one wanted to lose.”
The tipping point came in the 2002 World Cup, a moment American fans hold to their hearts and Mexican fans curse like an apocalypse. In Jeonju, Korea Republic, USA beat Mexico 2-0 in the Round of 16, the scoreline becoming a taunt that lives to this day: Dos a Cero.
“I’ll never forget that goal,” Landon Donovan, the young new hero who represented USA’s fast rise, said about scoring the second. “Scoring in a win over Mexico in the World Cup was a seriously big deal.”
One the other side of the coin, the eliminated Mexicans were forced to hide out among Seoul’s tall buildings and nightclubs for more than a week. Their fans were waiting back home to let them know just how much of a big deal it was.
It’s more than a game when Mexico and USA meet. In the smell of the grass and the taunts of the crowd are wrapped up nearly 100 years of shared history. There will be more Mexican fans in the 90,000-seat stadium because immigration is a reality and tribal loyalties are not easily shed. But the rivalry isn’t a story of aggression or violence, or even goals and stats, but of two neighbours, North American cousins with more in common than they know, desperate to win the day.