by Ethan Johnson
July 30, 2007
Hoo boy. I was on the fence about going to this game, partly because I don't know what to make of this "Superliga" tournament. I'm not really feeling a lot of buzz about it, but on the other hand, I'm told that Pachuca is one of THE best Mexican teams, and I'd be doing myself a gross injustice if I missed out. I decided to break ranks with the support section since this wasn't a real MLS game and try to get better at shooting sports with our hoop-te-too camera. I spent the first half in the support section anyway due to a ticketing error, then the second half on the rough equivalent to the 30-yard line. I took, I shit you not - over 1000 photos. Most were blurry crap, but I came away with 40 usable photos, which will be presented "thumbnail" style to prevent scrolling from hell. You're welcome. Anyway, here's what happened:
I am going to present the photos with minimal commentary since frankly, this experience was wayyyy too much work. Here are your contextual bullet points:
- Pachuca lost to the LA Galaxy 2-1 a few days prior to this game. Since FCD tied Chivas Guadalajara 1-1, I figured both teams would be firing on all cylinders looking for a win. I don't know much about Pachuca so I'm not sure how many starters played, but I assumed there would be more than the other game, that is, if Pachuca is remotely taking this mini-tournament seriously. I think the jury is out on that, frankly.
- It sure wasn't serious enough to put butts in the seats. The attendance was announced in the neighborhood of 7,000. That means oceans of empty seats, which, while good for me and my quest for photo vantage points, that's not good in terms of building up a fan base, generating interest, and so forth. I'm told that this game wasn't in the season ticket package so that might illustrate what is lost when the season ticket crowd stays home.
- It was weird to see the support section in the distance. I could hear Harlan of course, but the support group seems thicker when you're sitting in it, and pretty thin from further away. Since attendance was piss poor for this game, I'm not throwing that out as an indictment of the support section. Just interesting to see it (and everything else) from a different angle.
- I really, really, really appreciate Juan Toja and Pablo Ricchetti. I think the action shots below capture how vital they are to the team, but there's no substitute for seeing them in person. I wish FCD would grok this and really play that up in their marketing materials, but again, this wasn't a real MLS game and was marketed largely by someone else. But ca-mon. You want butts in the seats? Give them something to cheer for. I can't stress this enough, people, you're missing out if you haven't seen FCD at the stadium.
- In fact, I was rocking that continuous shooting mode on my camera (with the totally wrong image settings, so it's amazing that anything turned out at all), and kept missing really amazing moves. I caught one towards the end when Toja forced a Pachuca player to hurdle over him while he went in for a sliding tackle, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
- It's really quiet in the sideline seats. In fact, when FCD scored (pictured below) I pumped my fist quietly because everyone else was so reserved. Plus I was trying to take lots of photos. Normally I would have gone completely batshit in the support section. Which is why I prefer that section, normally.
- As Bill Maher would say, people need to understand that Mexican-Americans (and similar) can walk and chew gum at the same time. They can support Mexican soccer and MLS, and they can stand for both national anthems. I really hate this racist crap I see and hear tossed at the spanish-speaking population, and I enjoyed sitting with the Pachuca fans in the second half to get a feel for their reactions to the on-field action. You know you're in trouble when despite the low turnout the stadium explodes with "PUTO!" when Dario Sala fires off a goal kick. Hell, the support section couldn't interest anyone in the call-and-response chant of "FC... Dallas". Oops. Interesting that the FCD monitors displayed "GOAL!" when Pachuca scored. This was SO not an MLS game.
- FCD and Pachuca tied 1-1. (Pachuca scored a penalty kick, pictured towards the end of the photo set.) If Pachuca was really "for real" in that game, and really is one of THE best Mexican teams EVAR, then I guess this means FCD is playing at their level? FCD really needs to beat LA tomorrow night to advance to the next round, but again, I'm not sure how seriously anyone is taking this thing anyway, so who knows.
Click on the thumbnails to see the full-sized image. Enjoy!
Regular MLS action (for FCD) resumes in August. <EM>
(Much, much more virtual ink has been spilled by me about Major League Soccer. The fledgling but growing MLS article archive may be found here.)
