More Azul/Rojo thoughts

First off, Medio Tiempo (easily the best Spanish-language soccer site on the net) has a quick story about the game. Nice to see some international attention for the 'Backs.

But I figured that I'd have the best perspective about last night's game, because frankly, Atlanta has never seen anything like this before. I've been to Dallas for two Interligas and have experienced the kind of atmosphere that was present at ReMax last night.

Between those two Interligas, the Monterrey game earlier this month and now this game, I think I've seen around 10 different Mexican teams in action. And Cruz Azul last night was right around the top of what I've seen. Even when the game didn't mean anything, as the Interligas did.

What's interesting is that last night was ALL Cruz Azul fans, as opposed to what happens at an Interliga. The two times I've been, Chivas played the first year, America the second. So around 75% of the crowds in Dallas were rooting for them. But then you'd have your spattering of other teams' fans there too. I can fondly remember a good showing of Toluca fans the first year, customarily going shirtless during their game even though the temperature was around 40 degrees. And the huge group of Santos fans who displayed my favorite banner ever, the famous "El Komun Dallas" banner with the O being Jared Borgetti's head. Even Jaguares had a group of about 20 fans the second year!

And even though you had your "Don't be that guy" people wearing Chivas jerseys last night, the crazy Necaxa fans standing in Cupcake Nation and the guy who left his brain at home and wore a Tecos jersey (I can assure you it wasn't ECB), the stadium was blue last night. And let it be known for the record that I DID wear a Silverbacks jersey, when I could have easily thrown on my Cruz Azul jersey.

We can sit here and complain about problems with logistics getting into the stadium and the pricing of the tickets, but to see 99% of the crowd stay during the aguacero, a huge downpour at the end of the first half, showed that this wasn't your typical game. It was a fun night all around, and there was actually some good soccer played. Let's hope that the Silverbacks can do this again, and that they learn from what went wrong last night so that there won't be any problems next time.