Mexico 0, Ecuador 0
It was a good night in Chicago, but this morning I worry about COVID.
Martin took this photo of Stephen, my dad, and me.
You can see many more green shirts, but there were plenty of Ecuadorians: twenty or thirty percent of the crowd, I’d guess.
We took our masks into the stadium and then didn’t think to put them on. No one was near us at first. The stadium didn’t fill up until the game was well underway. (Final headcount: about 61,000.)
And I didn’t notice any mask-wearers until people began to leave. I’m not referring to the Mexicans with lucha libre masks.
My dad and I weren’t allowed to bring our drawstring bags into the stadium. “Go hide them in the trees,” advised the guard. After the game, quite a few people were creeping among the trees, in the dark, like perverts, searching for their belongings. Maybe this happens after every game at Soldier Field.
The fans behaved beautifully. No one fought, that I saw. Everyone just seemed happy to be there. We had Mexicans to our left and lively, friendly cuencanos to our right. The Mexicans sang Cielito lindo. Near the end of the game, they did their infamous taunt of Puto. Alexander Domínguez complained; the ref temporarily halted play.
This notice appeared on the scoreboard:
The Ecuadorians all laughed.
It was a good move by Domínguez, that savvy game-freezer, because the Mexicans had been been playing their best soccer; afterward, they did nothing. Ecuador was the much better team throughout the match.
Martin took this photo of Stephen, my dad, and me.
You can see many more green shirts, but there were plenty of Ecuadorians: twenty or thirty percent of the crowd, I’d guess.
We took our masks into the stadium and then didn’t think to put them on. No one was near us at first. The stadium didn’t fill up until the game was well underway. (Final headcount: about 61,000.)
And I didn’t notice any mask-wearers until people began to leave. I’m not referring to the Mexicans with lucha libre masks.
My dad and I weren’t allowed to bring our drawstring bags into the stadium. “Go hide them in the trees,” advised the guard. After the game, quite a few people were creeping among the trees, in the dark, like perverts, searching for their belongings. Maybe this happens after every game at Soldier Field.
The fans behaved beautifully. No one fought, that I saw. Everyone just seemed happy to be there. We had Mexicans to our left and lively, friendly cuencanos to our right. The Mexicans sang Cielito lindo. Near the end of the game, they did their infamous taunt of Puto. Alexander Domínguez complained; the ref temporarily halted play.
This notice appeared on the scoreboard:
The Ecuadorians all laughed.
It was a good move by Domínguez, that savvy game-freezer, because the Mexicans had been been playing their best soccer; afterward, they did nothing. Ecuador was the much better team throughout the match.