The Mexican National Team, colloquially known as El Tri, beat Panama last night 1-0 in an international friendly. The match was played before an announced attendance of 19,017 fans at Toyota Park in Bridgeview, Illinois a southwestern suburb of Chicago. It’s really a beautiful venue, with a capacity 21,000.
The house was rocking, and appeared about 75-80% full most of the night, so that attendance figure seems rather accurate.
It’s the most alive I’ve ever seen the venue and I’ve covered dozens of football/futbol/soccer games there. The Chicago Fire of Major League Soccer, a laughable doormat for many, many years now, play in the same venue and it’s usually half-empty.
The Chicago Red Stars moved into the venue this season, and that seems like it was a huge mistake given how they often draw less than 2-3,000. Their attendance numbers are quite often inflated, as anyone who’s been to Red Stars game at Toyota Park will tell you how overwhelmingly empty it is and how poor that makes the game day atmosphere.
It also doesn’t help that this world class venue was built in the DUMBEST LOCATION POSSIBLE.
It’s really out in the middle of nowhere, far from the city and inaccessible by public transportation. You have to drive there and that’s a total nightmare due to
1.) it’s accessed by one of the most highly congested free-ways in the Chicagoland area and
2.) there aren’t enough arteries into the venue to prohibit agitating, mind-numbing bottle-necks into the facility.
Horrible urban planning, terrible idea, and local police and parking lot workers did the best they could with a bad infrastructure. Also, credit the Mexican National Team fans! They dealt with all of that and stayed up very late to watch a 9:06 PM local kickoff on a Tuesday night; and drew a really big crowd.
Some fans showed up wearing sombreros, others had the flag draped around their bodies and pretty much everyone was in green. It was a definite home crowd advantage for the Mexican National Team. They were treated to a victory by Juan Carlos Osorio’s side; courtesy of an Oribe Peralta goal in the 60′ assisted by Giovani Dos Santos.
They atmosphere was electric….except for of course that notorious horribly bigoted, offensive homophobic chant. You know the one “PUTO!” screamed at the opposing goalkeeper every time he touches the ball. It translates roughly to “you are a gay male prostitute,” and despite messages before the game on the PA system, and attempts by FIFA to step in, it’s not going away.
If anything, it’s getting worse.
We’ll cover that topic in much more detail with a lot more gusto later. For now, we bring you arguably the best part of any international match, the national anthem. Here’s our video of “Himno Nacional Mexicano” (Mexican National Anthem).
A mariachi band performed the American national anthem as well, but our camera unfortunately ran out of battery by that point.
Enjoy the Mexican National Anthem, such a beautiful and rousing song in the YouTube file embedded below:
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.