On Sunday I was able to watch the Pumas-América match. It had been a long time since I last watched Mexican football, which is a variant of the soccer played in Europe. It was the second match for qualification to the semifinals, and it ended in a draw, just like the first one, with three goals for each side. While watching it, I was also paying attention to the opinions appearing on Twitter, which is common during matches. It occurred to me that, in a certain way, football is a reflection of national politics, one that could help us better understand the evolution of recent decades.
When I was a child, the classic rivalry in Mexican football was Chivas-América. I think there were a couple of other teams in Jalisco, one of them Atlas, which was my favorite in those years. In Mexico City there were several others as well. The two Monterrey teams were already competitive back then, but without national projection. For their fans, the season was a kind of obligation that had to be fulfilled in order to reach the truly important event: Tigres-Rayados.
In that decade, the seventies, Cruz Azul underwent its great transformation, to the point that it replaced Chivas in the top rivalry. They called it the “young clásico” back then. By the time we hosted our second World Cup, however, that era had passed, and the one we live in today had begun, in which América’s great rival is no longer Chivas or Cruz Azul, but Pumas.
I suppose there are many factors behind this, beginning with money and publicity, both of which América has in abundance, and undoubtedly many elements specific to football itself: strategies, coaches, players. I know nothing about that, but I think there is something beyond all of it that explains the transition from one rival to another.
The Chivas-América rivalry, beyond the football itself, was a clear reflection of the conflict between the capital and the “provinces.” It must be a simple coincidence, but Guadalajara and Mexico City precisely led the two great alternatives for national construction during the nineteenth century. The former was the axis of the northern “viceroyalties,” in addition to being the capital of Nueva Galicia. The latter, as the capital of New Spain, felt chosen to govern the new country. Beyond how history unfolded afterward, the poor opinion of the capital and its inhabitants is clearly more noticeable in that region than what one encounters to the south and east, that is, in the old New Spain. The Kingdom of Yucatán has remained as detached as possible, even preferring baseball.
In the seventies we experienced the first wave of class-based populism, now back in power today. Again, it must be a coincidence that the team followed by the customers of the cement industry—the construction workers—became the great adversary of the television monopoly. We no longer had a country anchored in the dispute between federalism and centralism; we were already a modern country immersed in class struggle. The great crisis in which that populism ended, placing us on the edge of disaster (avoided only by Manuel Negrete with that tremendous bicycle kick goal in the World Cup), gave way to political transformation.
A third curious coincidence: it is in this stage that the greatest rivalry no longer has its roots in federalism or class struggle, but rather in the even more modern left-right divide: the university against capital, intellectualism against television, moral superiority against the power of the market.
As I said, I know nothing about football, nor could I explain these rivalries in those terms. It is simply that, while watching that match, this series of rivalries came to mind, along with those curious coincidences with different political eras. Perhaps it would also be worth adding the declining popularity of this sport, but there is no space left. Maybe that would help us imagine the future.