While Lesley’s studying at an ashram in India, her husband Crayton is guest-posting. Please be kind to him.
I’m not one of those Americans who hate soccer or think it’s a wussy sport or whatever. I really enjoy the games, especially when I can go to the stadium, because as with American football, people-watching is half the fun.
I’ve been to two Mexican league games and one international game, the World Cup qualifier between the U.S. and Mexico last summer, pictured above. (Lesley chronicled some of those experiences here and here.)
I generally understand the game and a little bit of the strategy, though the unevenness in the enforcement of the offsides rule always confuses me. But Mexican soccer has some peculiarities that really throw me off. Maybe some of Lesley’s helpful readers can help me out here.
Why does the Mexican league have two seasons? It does! The first one is called the Apertura, or opening season. The second one is the Clausura, or closing season. (We’re currently in the middle of the Clausura.) Each season has its own champion. If a team manages to win both championships, it’s known as a bicampeonato, and it’s really rare and fantastic, they say. But unless that happens, each year does not have a single team that is declared the best in the country. I find this incredibly frustrating.
Why are teams so inconsistent? Pumas won the Clausura last year, then got off to an awful start in the Apertura. Chivas were so-so in the Apertura last year and are having a great Clausura so far. Nobody seems to be able to get any sort of dominant run going. Good teams turn bad and bad teams turn good almost instantly. Is there a lot of player turnover? Do the good teams lose their players to Europe or something? Is this common in all professional soccer? I feel like in Major League Soccer, the U.S. league I sort of paid attention to, there have been a few consistently good teams over many years.
Why is it so hard to figure out when the game is on? Seriously! I know Mexican soccer fans use sites like Medio Tiempo to keep up, but I have yet to find any central repository of information on what channel the game will be on. The newspapers never have any detail. Is the Pumas game on Televisa this week? Do Chivas play on TV Azteca? According to this, you’re just supposed to know?
How are Chivas still around? My friend Carlos, a diehard Chivas fan, says the Guadalajara team has a special mystique because its roster is, by policy, composed completely of Mexicans. No other team has that rule, he says. So if you’re puro mexicano, Chivas is your team. But this is an international game! Other teams are importing players from Argentina, Brazil, even the U.S. How can a team with this policy, which is either patriotic or xenophobic depending on your view, stay competitive? It automatically shuts out most of the world’s soccer players from its recruiting base!
Carlos is trying to convert me into a Chivas fan. I’m going to watch some games with him this pseudo-season and see if it rubs off. Who knows, maybe this’ll all become clear to me.























