Amor/Odio

Topeka, Kansas has a large Mexican population.  You wouldn't necessarily know it from the census data (Which is stupid, as it includes too much of the outlying county folk in its tally.  If you don't drive on Huntoon at least twice a week, you're not a Topekan), but trust me:  it's visible and significant.

Days after my 16th birthday, for whatever reason--be it fate or good looks or superior skills--I was asked by a hispanic guy (Gabe) from school to play on his team, Los Locos, in a local league called, brilliantly, Mexican League.  I don't want to make this post overly dramatic, but MEXICAN LEAGUE CHANGED MY LIFE.

Initially, there were a bunch of white guys on the team:  Simon, Ian, "Some Guy I Can't Remember" and me.  This is important because, at the time, there was only one other white player in the whole league, Colin, and he didn't even count, as he had grown up with most of the Mexican kids his age.  I think our team's whiteness came from necessity, as opposed to intent.  Gabe needed bodies to start a squad, and most of the soccer players he knew who weren't already on other teams happened to be high school aged and white.  So there we were in the gym in the picture to the left.  But as the season went on and on, the numbers slowly shifted, until, when the outdoor league started in the summer, I was the only white person left on our squad.

That's how it stayed for two years.  Me and Colin, me the only one that counted.  I wasn't exactly the most outgoing guy at the time, so I didn't talk much, but I sure listened.  To this day, I understand spoken Spanish at about a 70% literacy rate, thanks solely to Mexican League.  Can I speak it?  God no.  I answer in English and we meet somewhere in the middle.  It's definitely something I should work on.  I was rarely referred to by my real name for the first five years I played, initially referred to by the standard Guero, and eventually earning Popeye (which to this day, is a nickname extremely tenuous in its logic, but even stickier in its appeal to the people/fans involved in the league).  My younger brother eventually joined the team, upping the integration count to 3, but soon after, other teams started adding white players, and my novelty wore thin.

Mexican League exposed me to a completely different style of soccer than the one I had grown up playing.  Short, quick passes and dribbling ruled the day.  Growing up, I had decent footskills, but at the point I started playing competitive, travel ball, I was quickly converted into a stopper, and subsequently, was not encouraged to do anything other than defend.  Literally, from 10-16, I was a glorified linebacker.  Locate target... lock on... accelerate... destroy.  While it was probably for those reasons I was recruited to play with Los Locos, there was no way I could JUST play defense in that league, especially in indoor.  With four field players and limited space, I couldn't hide behind clearing the ball 50 yards up field anymore.  I had to learn to adapt.

So I grew as a player.  White, suburban people in America tend to grow up playing this hybrid-British-smashball version of soccer that JUST SUCKS.  Expect more about this in a different post at a later date.  Really, it was the social aspect that helped me grow more.

No matter how liberal minded your parents are, as a Midwesterner, you are bound to be at least somewhat of a racist by around age 12.  It comes from lack of exposure/segregation.

Abridged List of Acceptable Races to White People in the Midwest:

White, Indian, Chinese (read: All East Asian).

Complete List of Races that Make White People Uncomfortable in the Midwest:

Everyone Else.

Subset of Races Deserving of Locking Car Doors:

Black, Mexicans (read: All Hispanics), Male Native Americans.

My parents did a pretty decent job of raising me, so I'd like to think I have never been straight-up racist, but I think it's bullshit if you're white in America and can't cop to having had a bigoted thought or twelve at some point in your life.  Entering high school, I had never been exposed to large populations of hispanic or black people, and it was a good experience for me, socially.  It's one thing to learn about dead culture, the kind entombed in books; it's a whole different thing to be exposed to even a tenth of the way a different group in the world lives.  I will never claim to be an expert, but I can say that I know more now than I did twenty years ago.

I hope this doesn't read like some douchebag manifesto about acceptance or how I am somehow better than everyone else because I am so wise, worldly and openheartmionded.  I'd like to think that I'm not one of those terrible people that takes cultures they didn't grow up in and cannibalizes them for the sake of their own ego.  I'll keep my fingers crossed.

The point that I'm trying to make is that playing soccer in an environment where I was assuredly not in the majority was a meaningful experience to me, one that I am thankful for.  I can tell you that it changed me, I can even theorize that it changed me for the better.  I can tell you a smattering of the things that I learned:  Merigon is how you say faggot in spanish, and it isn't always in a bad way.  If you move after you pass the ball, you're more likely to get the ball back.  The Mexicans in Topeka I met are way more willing to be friendly with a white person than caucasian families would be, if situations were reversed.

All I know is that I have a deep and abiding love for Mexican League and the people I know as a result.  I love the way they play, I love the mix of intensity and camaraderie, I love the shitty fields and gyms, I love the parents, vendors and fans.  And because this has been my major exposure to Mexicans/Mexican Americans in my life, racist that I am, it's really hard for me not to generalize, to love the idea of Mexico itself.  It's as if the whole country has played a significant role in my growth as a soccer player/person.

So.  There.  I admit it.  I love Mexico.  I freakin love Mexico.

Let's get one thing straight, though:  I still hate the SHIT out of your team.

WHY I HATE YOUR TEAM - MEXICO EDITION

Dear Mexico:

I hate your team because there are two kinds of loathing: dismissal and respect.

I hate US fans that blindly hate Mexico more than I actually hate El Tri, which trust me, is a bunch.  Frankly, we owe those cheating, diving bastards a whole lot in terms of our development as a soccer playing nation.  For the longest time, our neighbors to the South were our vast superiors.  There's no way we could have gotten better at soccer without a legitimate opponent in the region.  Without Mexico, we would pretty much be New Zealand, who are only good when compared to the rest of Oceania.

So yeah, I hate you out of respect.  You're my one true hate, the team I knew I would meet someday, and in a beautiful, candle-lit ceremony, we would profess our undying ire for each other, and at that moment, my fist would repeatedly be wed with your face.  There's emotion and history in this hate.  I know you better than I know most people.  Hating you is more important to me than most of my friends.  If you didn't exist, I don't think I would be happy you were gone.  I want to be locked to you forever, spinning in space, my hands wrapped around your neck in an eternal embrace.

The Mexican national team takes everything I love about Mexican soccer and ruins it.  You see, sometimes, when I'm watching you play, Mexico, I ALMOST forget that you're about to fuck everything up.  Things are going well and your soccer is attractive, then, one of your players kicks someone from behind, throws an elbows, dives, handles the ball, comes in studs up, etc.  It's almost like you're in an abusive relationship with a really good friend of mine.  Sometimes, she appears to be happy, almost ecstatic.  She skipping along through life, making flowing passes and effective cuts towards the center of the field and then BAM!, one day she shows up with a bruised face, her cupped hands filled with thin explanations.

How dirty is Mexico?  Even their coach fouls other players.



That's some of the sleaziest shit I've ever seen in my life.  Javier Aguirre, you can go straight to hell.

What about your players?  Can they achieve the same kind of dickish behavior, when the bar is already set so high?  OF COURSE THEY CAN!

Rafa Marquez is an asshole.  He's listed as playing the position of Defender, but don't let that fool you.  On the team sheet, he is clearly marked as playing the most important of positions on your squad TOTALCFUKINGCOCKFACE.



I know this is a terrible video, but they have removed all other versions of this event from YouTube.  Basically, what happened is this:  Mexico crosses the ball in off of a free kick, Tim Howard collects the ball, Marquez jams his studs into Howard's thigh.  In my seventeen years of watching American soccer, I can guarantee that non of our players have ever tried to intentionally injure a Mexican player.  Unfortunately, Marquez dont play that way.

G2Santos is a bitch.  I'm not even going to bother spelling his name correctly.  Click the link if you want to know his whole deal.  Couldn't cut it at Barca?  Boo hoo.  Couldn't cut it in England?  Boooooo hoooooo.  Unhappy in Turkey?  BOOOOooo HOOOOOooo.  Upset that your brother didn't make the national team?  BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FUCKING HOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.  Oh, and your parents are a bunch of bitches, too.

I will never be able to spell Cualpzuaahhthemtonock Blanco's name.  Or pronounce it, for that matter.  You're a terrible player, too old, too slow and too boring to be any kind of impact player this summer.  Plus, your "signature" move is the stupidest thing I've ever had the displeasure of seeing in my entire life.  That's a move 8 year olds are proud of.  You know what would have been better in those situations?  PASSING THE BALL LIKE A REAL PERSON.

El Tri, you just can't hang.  Beating Italy was a red herring.  I guarantee that you won't make it out of the group this year.  And, if for some reason, one of the other teams dies in a bus accident (please do not make that happen, God), you will not make it past the second round.  Why?  You've made the second round at the past four WCs, then immediately lost.  Congratulations on your shitty consistency.  That would be like me saying "I've never been in a meaningful relationship, but I sure have had unprotected, one-night-stand-sex four times in the last twelve years!!!!  GO ME!"

Finally, the one knock on your country in general:  Fish tacos are the worst thing to ever happen in the history of food.  Seriously.  Don't ever eat one.  You will vomit for days, and not because you bought it from an unhygienic stand on the side of a road in Rosarita Beach.  You will vomit because it's FISH in a TACO.

I hate your team so much I would give up my left arm if it meant you never win a World Cup in your life.  You're my least favorite team in the history of teaming.  If you choked on a piece of steak, I would wait to clear your airway until after you'd suffered minor brain damage, permanently affecting your ability to spell and count, but nothing else.

-ZGS