El Copa del Mundo 2010

Mexicans love lots about life as we have learnt from random conversations with locals, however there are only a few things they really truely love…tequila, wrestling and football (in no certain order!) are the real passions here. Mexico 1986 was by far the best world cup tournament I can remember, being dominated by one of, if not the greatest footballer of all time, Maradonna…ok, get over the hand-of-god thing! It also gave birth to the crowds favourite pastime the Mexican wave, where would an English fan be without something else to do while the game is going on. So being in Mexico City as the current world cup was about to kick off in South Africa, and Mexico playing in the opening game against the hosts gave us the opportunity to witness this Mexican passion first hand. The main plaza had been taken over with huge screens and a fans zone to watch not just the opening game but all games. The match kicked off at 9am but from about 3am you could here fans and bands playing on the streets in anticipation. Just before kick-off we headed to the plaza and joined around 10,000 fans packed into the plaza and glued to the screens – silly hats, flags, face paintings and all the normal hysteria that goes into watching a world cup game was on show along with about 5,000 armed police – expecting trouble?!?! Unfortunately as well as the Mexican team started, the game slowly turned into a little bit of dull game, then South Africa scored and the hearts of 10,000 Mexicans sank to the bottom of their tequila bottles alongside the worm. But thankfully the Mexican’s got what they deserved and managed to equalise and as the streamers flew into the air from huge cannons off the main stage the crowd began a quick chorus of ‘Viva Mexico’ in celebration, was all good fun. Somehow we also ended up getting interviewed at half-time by a Mexican sports programme based in LA, all a bit bizarre! They were in the crowd taking footage of people and the scenes etc when they spotted us and we got asked if we would be interviewed (it started in Spanish but soon ended up in English thankfully!)….so at half-time some poor Mexicans watching the game in America got me and Shona smiling like idiots and talking rubbish, lucky them!!