Fans celebrate Mexico's first goal while watching the World Cup match between Mexico and South Korea at Plaza Mexico in Lynwood.
(Michael Owen Baker / For the Los Angeles Times)
Posted on 06/23/2018 12:21:48 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Thousands of soccer fans gathered in sports bars, churches, restaurants, pubs, football clubs and makeshift viewing stands all over Southern California on Saturday to watch Mexico take on South Korea in the World Cup in Russia.
Mexico, which upset reigning champion Germany in its June 17 opening match, was favored to win. But history was not on Mexico’s side because it had not won back-to-back matches at a World Cup since 2002.
The two teams had met once before at the World Cup in 1998, with Mexico winning 3-1.
Watching the first half of the game at Wilshire Plaza Park in Koreatown, Roy Mendez, 40, stopped waving the Mexican flag he was holding as he waited for Carlos Vela of the Mexican national team to take a penalty shot in the first half.
When Vela scored, Mendez jumped up and down, nearly knocking off his jumbo straw hat emblazoned with the words “Viva Mexico.”
“I’m so happy,” he said. “I’m elated, I’m just feeling so good right now. I don’t know how else to express it.”
His three neighbors celebrated the goal standing alongside South Korea fans, whose enthusiasm was instantly deflated.
“I need them to score another, just in case,” Mendez said, chuckling.
Mendez arrived at the plaza at 6 a.m. The World Cup viewing party was sponsored by Radio Korea and McDonald’s. A giant screen showing the match stood outside of the radio station’s headquarters. Mendez said he arrived early, despite living only three blocks away. Because of the crowds, they slowly got pushed to the back.
Nearby, Eric Park, 37, and his dog Miggy watched the game with friends.
“It was a fair penalty,” Park said of Mexico’s first goal. “It was unfortunate, but those are the rules of the game.”
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I wonder how many of the “Mexicans” cheering the team in Russia are really Americans who jumped on the bandwagon?
How about going back to Mexico, for starters.
Quite a few, I suspect.
Apparently the U.S. team isn’t there? Or something?
I find it really funny that indigenous people root for a country that treats them like crap.
It would be like a Jew rooting for Nazi Germany.
***YAWN***
What else is on? Soccer is one of the most boring games to watch. IF somebody actually scores it’s pandemonium.
Fugeddabouddit.
The United States team did not qualify for the World Cup playoffs.
The captain of Mexico’s soccer team at the World Cup remains persona non grata in the U.S. where he is listed by the U.S Treasury Department as a narco-kingpin. U.S. federal authorities claim that the soccer star acted as a front man to help drug cartels launder money.
I guess he did not get the SJW memo.
Simple solution, let’s just make every goal worth 7 points.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
What country is this again?
I’ll bet the bar empties out if somebody yells at the bartender for ICE.
El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles
Omg. I never thought of it that way. You have a point. Even racially. The government in Mexico City probably has very little mestizo dna.
“I find it really funny that indigenous people root for a country that treats them like crap.”
The whites in Latin America have a heck of a scam going. They talk about everyone being part of the same “raza” (race) with the same “raíces” (roots), and miraculously most people seem to buy it. That way no one seems all that bothered by the whites being overwhelmingly the ones in control at the top living in nice, safe communities, while the Indians and blacks are at the bottom rungs of society in many instances. They’re all the same people after all.
And then for the ones who bother leaving their cushy positions in their home countries to come here, they get affirmative action preferences over other whites (including fellow Southern Europeans like Italians and Greeks). Don’t they have it good!
As a white I should find this comforting if turning us into Latin America happens. But, I can't help but think that the US/Latin model would be "Whites Last."
Oh my goodness. How exciting. Third world sports.
Germany beat Sweden.
I felt badly for all the beautiful Swedish babes in attendance.
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