Even without the background of Donald Trump as president-elect, Friday night’s World Cup qualifier will be played between two teams in transition
Well, that escalated quickly. The preamble to last year’s USA v Mexico clash, for the right to represent Concacaf at the Confederations Cup, seems impossibly quaint at this moment. To pick out a couple of random phenomena, Fox Soccer were forced on the defensive for a video montage that seemed to make light of Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric, while on the Mexican side it was possible to walk through the Rose Bowl parking lots before the game, and see Trump piñatas dotted among the portable BBQs. But it still all seemed like so much carnival posturing on both sides.
The symbolism just went up a notch after Trump’s presidential election victory. The soccer rivalry is charged enough in the best of times, but under the circumstances there’s now an additional level to add into the history of Dos a Cero. So while we can make some guesses at the technical side of what’s coming up, it’s hard to say how the cultural side of the occasion will play out, when emotions are still raw. There is of course the possibility that love ends up beating hate on away goals ...
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