FanNation - The Republic of Sport

200motels said 04/05, 04:03 PM
Thanks for inviting me. This is my first throwdown, so I don't know if I am adhering to the conventions.
I choose the rivalry between two historic Mexican clubs, Am??rica, formed on Columbus Day, 1916 and Los Chivas (the Goats) de Guadalajara, formed in 1908. Los Chivas??? name is actually El Club Uni??n, but they were derisively called a bunch of goats by a newspaper and the name stuck.
Since I speak fluent Spanish and have a great love for Mexico, I follow Mexican soccer very closely on Spanish-language television. Am??rica and Los Chivas are the two greatest teams in Mexico. They meet every year for a game which is called El Cl??sico (or El Super Cl??sico) and which ordinarily draws over 100,000 spectators at the stadium and many hundreds of millions more around the world. This game has been played since 1943 when it was won with a 3-1 victory by Guadelajara.
This is the hottest rivalry in Mexican soccer. There have been many bench-clearing riots on the field, notably in 1983, when both teams were charged with assault, and in 1986.
El Super Cl??sico is the most important game of the Mexican football season, always played at Estadio Jalisco or Estadio Azteca.

200motels said 04/06, 10:57 PM
In pre-Colombian Mexico the great Mayan empire had a ball game resembling soccer, where the teams had to put the ball through a stone loop using just their hips or their heads. As a matter of course, the losers were cut open and their still-beating hearts were ripped out and thrown into the sacred lagoon. This charming custom has been allowed to lapse, but the spirit endures.

Since Los Chivas field only Mexican players and America uses players from all around the world, El Super Clasico is the playing field that pits the Mexican spirit against the rest of the world. The players know that it is unforgiveable to lose a game because they are fighting not only for the trophy but for the sacred honor of football. It is not uncommon for players to dress up like superheros, like in Lucha Libre, to confront their opponents. The hundreds of thousands of fans who attend the game typically create riots in the stadium.
The frenetic pace of the games make you forget that they are being played a mile and a half above sea-level. It's easy to choose one team over the other but they are pretty evenly matched at the top of football, so it is pretty much left up to the gods to decide which team w

200motels said 04/07, 02:24 PM
Considering the height of emotion that the subject arouses in me I feel that I should be indulged the small degree of hyperbole I expressed concerning live attendance at the Super Clasico. Once you exceed 100,000 spectators the counting goes into the hundreds of thousands.
Football is not just a sport of athletic brilliance. It is a showcase of world cultures. In no other country is the fusion of classic and contemporary cultures more complete than in Mexico, where even though the players??? lives are no longer on the line they play the game with the same life-or-death urgency.
Mexico is the pinnacle of Latin American civilization. The Super Clasico assembles a super team of players from throughout that region (America) and pits it against the most superb Mexican-born players (Chivas). By this process are the teams subjected to a hardening process as in a blast furnace of fire, presided over by the spirits of the warrior kings of the ancient nations and revered by the present incarnations of their subjects. The resultant spectacle is a pageant of primordial passion the emotional significance of which has no equivalent anywhere in sport.