An American Soccer Fan's Musings on Mexico - by Brian Fobi

See http://spotlightsoccer.com/index.php?action=article&id=12 for original article and discussion of this article.

An American Soccer Fan's Musings on Mexico

Posted on Monday 04th of February 2008 12:10:15 AM by Brian Fobi

As a sporting rivalry, the United States vs. Mexico soccer rivalry is highly unusual in a number of ways. There is an enormous asymmetry in terms of the histories, pedigrees and breadth of fan devotion, and in many ways the rivalry feeds off of the deeply ambivalent nature of the larger geopolitical environment in which the matchup takes place.
This causes fans to lose a sense of objectivity about the strengths of the respective squads, and many debates in online forums rapidly degenerate into silly jingoistic tirades. Can, then, an American soccer fan offer an honest assessment of the strengths of the two sides? I shall try.
Mexico is better. Ugh… just saying is a disgusting thing for an American soccer fan. Mexico is better. As odious as the sentence feels to say and sounds to hear, it is as true as it is disappointing. Now, I know all the head-to-head statistics that show how dominant the Untied States has been away from Azteca, and by any reasonable examination of the situation, even the most diehard fan of the Tricolores would have to admit that Mexico can’t beat the United States. Odd as it sounds, though, it doesn’t actually mean that the United States is better.
In boxing, trainers and journalists talk about styles making fights, and this is certainly true of soccer as well. For reasons either stylistic or psychological, the United States has Mexico’s number. That said, it is also certainly true that Mexico has fared better against top international competition than has the United States.
To get at the root of my point, imagine a thought experiment. Suppose that you took the top seven teams in the world; for the sake of argument, let us say that they are Italy, Brazil, Argentina, France, Spain, Portugal, and Germany. Suppose further that you could select either the United States or Mexico to play in this round-robin tournament. Which team would do better? Even as an American fan, I think it is obvious that Mexico would likely do better. They have played Brazil and Argentina extremely well of late, even managing to pull out some high profile wins. In any case, none of those teams would outclass Mexico in the way that, say, the Czech Republic did to the United States in 2006.
It is completely understandable to want to tear down your rival, and to dismiss them out of hand as being of less quality. Doing so, though, both diminishes the victories that you earn against them and also precludes you from trying to learn something from them. Irrespective of the dominance that Team USA has had against Mexico of late, who would argue against the notion that the USA could learn something from the way in which Mexico insists on playing with style, attack mindedness and flow. Similarly, for what’s worth, Mexico could also learn a great deal from the United States about how to play with grit and determination when confronted with a more talented opponent.
So, the United States and Mexico will gear up to play again, and both sides will likely both overstate the importance of the match while, oddly, also understating the quality of their opponent. This is an unfortunate mistake because both sides have some quality players, a bright future, and real reasons to respect each other, even if they don’t always like each other.