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ensco
04-28-2018, 12:52 PM
This is not about the game per se. This is about going to see the game in Guadalajara - I’ll use “GDL”, the airport code, from here, to help avoid carpal tunnel. (A bunch of supporters have a “That Night in Toronto” tshirt about the MLS Cup win, hence the title of this - I heard the line from someone who made the joke the night before the game.)

First, a serious thank you to all the Red Patch Boys, who delivered a great road trip experience with respect to stadium/ticket logistics in the trickiest situations, and are incredibly welcoming to fellow TFC travellers they don’t yet know. I have been around the team and the boards from the very beginning, but I am not a south end guy, don’t do many road trips, and am a lot older than most of these folks. They couldn’t have been nicer to me. Special mentions for Flush, renda-10 and ChrisFizik (they were the most obvious stemwinders, I may have missed other deserving folks), as well as max527, who spent all day in the broiling heat Monday and hooked me up with tickets.

Get a globe and a string. Try to find somewhere further from Toronto in Concacaf than GDL. Basically the only places farther away are Anchorage and Panama City. You can fly direct to Panama, but you have to change planes to get to GDL. It’s the end of the line. A perfect metaphor.

All that to say, it is a long trip, further door to door than flying to Madrid or Copenhagen. It was 11 hours each way door to door for me, and I had pretty good connections in Mexico City. It was 15-20 hours for some people. It is an effing huge commitment to go to this, especially midweek. I took three days off work, and was only on the ground for 36 hours.

Tickets

I had originally planned to sit in good seats (I went with an old friend, neither of us are south enders), walk in incognito, have a look around, then put on some TFC gear once assured of the situation. This had worked well for my companion in the two earlier games, he had gone to the earlier games in Monterrey and Mexico City (I asked around, there are probably about five known TFC fans who did this, the “El Tri-fecta”!).

But it became increasingly obvious in the days leading up to the game that the ticket situation was a bit of a shambles. There was no public sale on their local equivalent of ticketmaster, communications about when that would occur was nonexistent. Twitter was full of complaints from Chivas SSH that they couldn’t get on either. A lot of people had bought expensive airline tickets, but had no certainty on seats. Stubhub tickets were USD $200+ (most of them were USD $350-500 each). The team/RPB were also being mostly kept in the dark until the weekend, so even with the supporters, there was a fair bit of anxiety around this.

The public sale finally happened on the Monday, but the website was useless, it kept crashing, and there were epic lines at the stadium itself, so much so that it got covered on the local news.

https://twitter.com/_gonsed/status/988551198914441216
https://twitter.com/AztecaDeportes/status/988535864853594112

RPB and the other supporters got their tickets on Tuesday, and we were happy to revise our plans and be part of the supporters at the game.

At breakfast in my hotel Wednesday, I met three guys in Chivas jerseys… and San Diego Chargers hats. They told me that there was massive travelling support at this game, mostly from Southern California, their flight from Tijuana (“TJ”) had been 100% Chivas fans singing, and that those people in the ticket lines were mostly scalpers reselling to the Mexican-Americans coming down for the game.

GDL

I walked around for a couple of hours in the early evening Tuesday, and all day Wednesday. GDL is a huge city, bigger than TO, a lot of sprawl but surrounded by pretty hills, and it has a charming downtown district, Centro. I had only been to beach resorts in Mexico, so this was new to me. México auténtico.

GDL feels like southern Spain in Centro (that part of the city is seriously old, cathedral was built in 1568!) and the rest is a Mexican version of LA’s suburbs. It is a big industrial/commercial city and there is obviously a ton of wealth there – big, safe neighbourhoods with beautiful malls, restaurants etc. People in GDL are uniformly pleasant and hospitable, without exception. They were thrilled that people had come to their city, they wanted to show it in the best light.

There are tremendous things to see here just outside the city too – tequila tours (the city of Tequila is an hour away), pyramids, plus great golf and tennis. Oh btw, GDL is the cosmetic surgery capital of North America, so for those so inclined ….

Safety on the streets is a recurring question/theme. I never felt uncomfortable once, and I didn’t hear about anyone else who did either. There is a very visible police presence in the better neighbourhoods of GDL. But there are obviously serious problems that aren’t affecting the tourist/business areas …. this story dominated the news while we were there (don’t click if you have a weak stomach)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/04/24/three-mexican-film-students-were-killed-their-bodies-dissolved-in-acid-authorities-say/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.50c92fa2cd48

So there are awful stories there, as there are throughout Mexico really. No escaping that.

No matter. Bad things can happen once in a blue moon in Toronto too, sadly, and there are places I don’t feel safe at home either.

I would go back to GDL in a heartbeat. I would like to go back. I would take my family there.

The Night Before

RPB guys had set up a chat room and I met a big group of them for drinks the night before. Had a really great time. Learned that I liked tequila a lot more than I thought I did, especially white tequila (blanco). The best tequila for me is Don Julio 70, thanks to Rick from Puerto Vallarta for the pro tip!

I think it helped that we were in a hole going into the second leg. Tuesday night, the feeling was, victory of course, but whatever will be will be. Weirdly, that made the buildup more fun and relaxed. We were loose, and in the way that hardcore fans delude themselves into thinking that they are in cosmic sync with the players, it made me think that the TFC players must be loose too.

Getting to the Game

The rendezvous was at 5.30pm (which is a long time before kickoff, which was 8.30pm local), but, as we would see, there were reasons for that. TFC had chartered two buses for the ~100 supporters (thanks Bill Manning!) Best I could tell, it was about 50/40/10, Inibriatti/RPB/USector. The pickup was at a bar in a nice neighbourhood called, amusingly… the York Pub!

Traffic is bad in GDL, Estadio Akron is in a western suburb, and it was rush hour. We slowly made our way out there. There were amusing reactions all along the way as people realized the buses were filled with “Toronto Aficion”, and some people on the bus played it up, waving Canadian flags. Some other people on the buses became uneasy about this, worrying that it might make us a target. But in the end, people mostly laughed at us. It kind of felt to me like the way Torontonians might look at Mexican hockey supporters, or the way anyone might look at otters or seals. Cute! They did not see us as serious opponents, and thought this was in the bag. Good.

They approach to the stadium is dramatic, “the UFO” sits alone in a valley, with a humungous Mexican flag looming beside it…. But the access is a single two lane road, and the traffic jam was enormous. Luckily we got special treatment, and were allowed to use a blocked road, so all in all it only took us about an hour and 10 minutes to get out there. (But it must have been 2 hours + for most people, and the stadium did not fill up until well after kickoff.)

Away Support in the Lions Den

This was amazing to me, and is worth retelling in detail. I have never seen anything like this. (I suspect Italy and France have this level of crazy for big games, but I don’t think any of Spain, Germany or 21st century England do)

We got off the buses and were in a barricaded section far from other arriving ticket holders. The barricades were manned by no less than 50 fully kitted riot police, some of whom were carrying shields. We milled around in the sun, tracking the Leafs and Raptors on our phones, waiting for the OK to go in. Meanwhile I got to talking to one of the cops – he told me they were all rooting for us, that their evening would be better if Toronto won, and that most of the police there were “Atlas”, ie Atlas supporters, from the other side of town. That’s apparently always how they staff it – they don’t want Chivas supporters protecting the away support, and they have Chivas supporter cops protect the away support at Atlas games!

After about half an hour of this, we got the word, and got personal escorts into the stadium. I am not exaggerating –they bring fans up to the ticket gates in very small groups. There, I got the most thorough patdown I have ever received, and was allowed in.

The entrance, stairwell, concourse amenities, and of course the secton itself, are all walled/barricaded off, with what had to be another 100 police officers in riot gear enforcing that. It’s truly a virtual cage. The whole thing made me wonder what the hell was going to happen once we got in there.

Some funny details – the visiting support section has no seats, it’s open terrace style, unlike the rest of the stadium. They had beer, and food (bad American knockoff fast food only, sadly), but you had to drink your beer in the concourse.

The guys all did a great job singing (I kind of lost my voice early), which really got the Chivas supporters going, many of their chants were reactions to ours. It was impressive. I don’t know if the players could hear it (it was so loud in there in general) but the travelling support more than did its part.


There was no real animosity towards us from the Chivas fans at any point. We did get beer showers, once when they scored, and a second time when they won, but it was not that big a deal to me (it did upset a couple of other people). I do wonder what might have happened if we had won the game. Sadly we’ll never know.

The one ugly incident that occurred happened late in the first half, just before Seba scored, when a drunk Chivas supporter charged the line of cops protecting our section for some reason. The cops muscled him out, brought him through the barricade, into our mens washroom, and beat him up (possibly quite badly – I didn’t see it, but others around me saw them carry the guy out).

After penalties, we put our feelings aside and all joined in a “Chivas” chant and applauded their team/fans, which generated a huge wave of positive reaction. Up went a huge “Toronto, Toronto, Toronto” back at us. It was a nice way to finish, in a difficult moment for us.

Overall, I came away with the impression that 99.9% of the Chivas aficion treated us with respect and camaraderie. It was not the nationalistic fiesta I had feared it might be.

Estadio Akron

I don’t have enough superlatives to describe this venue. It is simply the best place I have ever seen a game. It’s magnificent architecture, the right size, intimate even with 50K, well designed concourses, great sightlines, good acoustics. I would go to GDL again just to go back to that stadium.

Holy crap, was it loud in there. It started when they sang in voice a mariachi song for the team. I think it was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mvt19ORBMs
I wish we had a mariachi song!

Then they were just loud, in waves. When Chivas scored, when Gio was working the refs, whenever they had good possession, when they hit that post, and in general. We did kind of make them quieten down, after the second goal, but by about the 55th minute they were back. They were especially impressive in penalties. I believe they were really an intimidating factor there, the place was just shaking as each of our guys was approaching to place the ball. I know Bradley’s ball moved after he put it down, I can’t help but think the noise caused that.

The only time there was silence was when Delgado missed. I wish I had video of that. Everybody in the stadium, and I mean everybody, had a look of disbelief, their head in their hands. For us, what could have been, for them, the great escape. I will see that scene in my mind for a long, long time.

Departure

Efficient and unremarkable, except for the gigantic fire near the stadium, and our buses, that was set off by an errant firework (they fired a whole bunch off when Chivas won).
http://espndeportes.espn.com/futbol/mexico/nota/_/id/4237554/incendio-a-un-lado-del-estadio-akron-mientras-chivas-se-coronaba

It gave an already surreal night an even more surreal ending. We got some beers afterwards, but nobody was in much of a mood for talking. A lot of “10,000 mile stares”. So close. Goddammit.

Hechas en Mexico

The Mexican papers all covered the story of the first and only team composed entirely of Mexican nationals to go to the CWC. It was front page news. It is genuinely worth acknowledging as a significant accomplishment, it seems to me.

Ashtone Morgan and Jonathan Osorio are our national heroes. Late in the game, Jordan Hamilton had a half chance on a ball from Jay Chapman. Imagine if that had been a real chance….

Made in Canada. We have a ways to go. But we are on the way.

Initial B
04-28-2018, 06:09 PM
Thanks for the writeup ensco. Still smarting from this afternoon.

OgtheDim
04-28-2018, 06:15 PM
You have to spread some reputation around....

Thanks

Carter
04-28-2018, 06:40 PM
You have to spread rep around...

ensco, many thanks for this write up bud. Your view and opinions are always great!

Blkndkr
04-28-2018, 06:55 PM
Wish I was there, regardless of how it ended. Great post.

benito
04-28-2018, 08:10 PM
Thanks for that detailed write up Ensco. It was a wonderful read. I can imagine how great of a memory that will be for you and the other supporters for years to come.

Auzzy
04-28-2018, 09:27 PM
Thanks for the write-up Ensco. My wife and I were saying today, we have to make it to an away game with a group sometime this year. But not Montreal again (been there 3 times for TFC, AFAIR).

Commie Red
04-29-2018, 03:53 PM
Wonderful write-up. Thank you.

AlanO
04-29-2018, 06:20 PM
Great stuff! Thanks for sharing.

Couchy81
04-29-2018, 06:47 PM
Good writeup Ensco. Wish I was there with you guys. A Chivas supporter was filming the post-match chants you guys had for them, they posted it on the TFC reddit page the other day.

​https://www.facebook.com/DiegoHuertaCerv/posts/1006214519552847

Areathrasher
04-29-2018, 06:59 PM
Excellent read. Cheers.

Red CB Toronto
04-29-2018, 10:17 PM
Thanks for the wonderful read and all the insight you have brought to the boards over the years, its much appreciated.


This is not about the game per se. This is about going to see the game in Guadalajara - I’ll use “GDL”, the airport code, from here, to help avoid carpal tunnel. (A bunch of supporters have a “That Night in Toronto” tshirt about the MLS Cup win, hence the title of this - I heard the line from someone who made the joke the night before the game.)

First, a serious thank you to all the Red Patch Boys, who delivered a great road trip experience with respect to stadium/ticket logistics in the trickiest situations, and are incredibly welcoming to fellow TFC travellers they don’t yet know. I have been around the team and the boards from the very beginning, but I am not a south end guy, don’t do many road trips, and am a lot older than most of these folks. They couldn’t have been nicer to me. Special mentions for Flush, renda-10 and ChrisFizik (they were the most obvious stemwinders, I may have missed other deserving folks), as well as max527, who spent all day in the broiling heat Monday and hooked me up with tickets.

Get a globe and a string. Try to find somewhere further from Toronto in Concacaf than GDL. Basically the only places farther away are Anchorage and Panama City. You can fly direct to Panama, but you have to change planes to get to GDL. It’s the end of the line. A perfect metaphor.

All that to say, it is a long trip, further door to door than flying to Madrid or Copenhagen. It was 11 hours each way door to door for me, and I had pretty good connections in Mexico City. It was 15-20 hours for some people. It is an effing huge commitment to go to this, especially midweek. I took three days off work, and was only on the ground for 36 hours.

Tickets

I had originally planned to sit in good seats (I went with an old friend, neither of us are south enders), walk in incognito, have a look around, then put on some TFC gear once assured of the situation. This had worked well for my companion in the two earlier games, he had gone to the earlier games in Monterrey and Mexico City (I asked around, there are probably about five known TFC fans who did this, the “El Tri-fecta”!).

But it became increasingly obvious in the days leading up to the game that the ticket situation was a bit of a shambles. There was no public sale on their local equivalent of ticketmaster, communications about when that would occur was nonexistent. Twitter was full of complaints from Chivas SSH that they couldn’t get on either. A lot of people had bought expensive airline tickets, but had no certainty on seats. Stubhub tickets were USD $200+ (most of them were USD $350-500 each). The team/RPB were also being mostly kept in the dark until the weekend, so even with the supporters, there was a fair bit of anxiety around this.

The public sale finally happened on the Monday, but the website was useless, it kept crashing, and there were epic lines at the stadium itself, so much so that it got covered on the local news.

https://twitter.com/_gonsed/status/988551198914441216
https://twitter.com/AztecaDeportes/status/988535864853594112

RPB and the other supporters got their tickets on Tuesday, and we were happy to revise our plans and be part of the supporters at the game.

At breakfast in my hotel Wednesday, I met three guys in Chivas jerseys… and San Diego Chargers hats. They told me that there was massive travelling support at this game, mostly from Southern California, their flight from Tijuana (“TJ”) had been 100% Chivas fans singing, and that those people in the ticket lines were mostly scalpers reselling to the Mexican-Americans coming down for the game.

GDL

I walked around for a couple of hours in the early evening Tuesday, and all day Wednesday. GDL is a huge city, bigger than TO, a lot of sprawl but surrounded by pretty hills, and it has a charming downtown district, Centro. I had only been to beach resorts in Mexico, so this was new to me. México auténtico.

GDL feels like southern Spain in Centro (that part of the city is seriously old, cathedral was built in 1568!) and the rest is a Mexican version of LA’s suburbs. It is a big industrial/commercial city and there is obviously a ton of wealth there – big, safe neighbourhoods with beautiful malls, restaurants etc. People in GDL are uniformly pleasant and hospitable, without exception. They were thrilled that people had come to their city, they wanted to show it in the best light.

There are tremendous things to see here just outside the city too – tequila tours (the city of Tequila is an hour away), pyramids, plus great golf and tennis. Oh btw, GDL is the cosmetic surgery capital of North America, so for those so inclined ….

Safety on the streets is a recurring question/theme. I never felt uncomfortable once, and I didn’t hear about anyone else who did either. There is a very visible police presence in the better neighbourhoods of GDL. But there are obviously serious problems that aren’t affecting the tourist/business areas …. this story dominated the news while we were there (don’t click if you have a weak stomach)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/04/24/three-mexican-film-students-were-killed-their-bodies-dissolved-in-acid-authorities-say/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.50c92fa2cd48

So there are awful stories there, as there are throughout Mexico really. No escaping that.

No matter. Bad things can happen once in a blue moon in Toronto too, sadly, and there are places I don’t feel safe at home either.

I would go back to GDL in a heartbeat. I would like to go back. I would take my family there.

The Night Before

RPB guys had set up a chat room and I met a big group of them for drinks the night before. Had a really great time. Learned that I liked tequila a lot more than I thought I did, especially white tequila (blanco). The best tequila for me is Don Julio 70, thanks to Rick from Puerto Vallarta for the pro tip!

I think it helped that we were in a hole going into the second leg. Tuesday night, the feeling was, victory of course, but whatever will be will be. Weirdly, that made the buildup more fun and relaxed. We were loose, and in the way that hardcore fans delude themselves into thinking that they are in cosmic sync with the players, it made me think that the TFC players must be loose too.

Getting to the Game

The rendezvous was at 5.30pm (which is a long time before kickoff, which was 8.30pm local), but, as we would see, there were reasons for that. TFC had chartered two buses for the ~100 supporters (thanks Bill Manning!) Best I could tell, it was about 50/40/10, Inibriatti/RPB/USector. The pickup was at a bar in a nice neighbourhood called, amusingly… the York Pub!

Traffic is bad in GDL, Estadio Akron is in a western suburb, and it was rush hour. We slowly made our way out there. There were amusing reactions all along the way as people realized the buses were filled with “Toronto Aficion”, and some people on the bus played it up, waving Canadian flags. Some other people on the buses became uneasy about this, worrying that it might make us a target. But in the end, people mostly laughed at us. It kind of felt to me like the way Torontonians might look at Mexican hockey supporters, or the way anyone might look at otters or seals. Cute! They did not see us as serious opponents, and thought this was in the bag. Good.

They approach to the stadium is dramatic, “the UFO” sits alone in a valley, with a humungous Mexican flag looming beside it…. But the access is a single two lane road, and the traffic jam was enormous. Luckily we got special treatment, and were allowed to use a blocked road, so all in all it only took us about an hour and 10 minutes to get out there. (But it must have been 2 hours + for most people, and the stadium did not fill up until well after kickoff.)

Away Support in the Lions Den

This was amazing to me, and is worth retelling in detail. I have never seen anything like this. (I suspect Italy and France have this level of crazy for big games, but I don’t think any of Spain, Germany or 21st century England do)

We got off the buses and were in a barricaded section far from other arriving ticket holders. The barricades were manned by no less than 50 fully kitted riot police, some of whom were carrying shields. We milled around in the sun, tracking the Leafs and Raptors on our phones, waiting for the OK to go in. Meanwhile I got to talking to one of the cops – he told me they were all rooting for us, that their evening would be better if Toronto won, and that most of the police there were “Atlas”, ie Atlas supporters, from the other side of town. That’s apparently always how they staff it – they don’t want Chivas supporters protecting the away support, and they have Chivas supporter cops protect the away support at Atlas games!

After about half an hour of this, we got the word, and got personal escorts into the stadium. I am not exaggerating –they bring fans up to the ticket gates in very small groups. There, I got the most thorough patdown I have ever received, and was allowed in.

The entrance, stairwell, concourse amenities, and of course the secton itself, are all walled/barricaded off, with what had to be another 100 police officers in riot gear enforcing that. It’s truly a virtual cage. The whole thing made me wonder what the hell was going to happen once we got in there.

Some funny details – the visiting support section has no seats, it’s open terrace style, unlike the rest of the stadium. They had beer, and food (bad American knockoff fast food only, sadly), but you had to drink your beer in the concourse.

The guys all did a great job singing (I kind of lost my voice early), which really got the Chivas supporters going, many of their chants were reactions to ours. It was impressive. I don’t know if the players could hear it (it was so loud in there in general) but the travelling support more than did its part.


There was no real animosity towards us from the Chivas fans at any point. We did get beer showers, once when they scored, and a second time when they won, but it was not that big a deal to me (it did upset a couple of other people). I do wonder what might have happened if we had won the game. Sadly we’ll never know.

The one ugly incident that occurred happened late in the first half, just before Seba scored, when a drunk Chivas supporter charged the line of cops protecting our section for some reason. The cops muscled him out, brought him through the barricade, into our mens washroom, and beat him up (possibly quite badly – I didn’t see it, but others around me saw them carry the guy out).

After penalties, we put our feelings aside and all joined in a “Chivas” chant and applauded their team/fans, which generated a huge wave of positive reaction. Up went a huge “Toronto, Toronto, Toronto” back at us. It was a nice way to finish, in a difficult moment for us.

Overall, I came away with the impression that 99.9% of the Chivas aficion treated us with respect and camaraderie. It was not the nationalistic fiesta I had feared it might be.

Estadio Akron

I don’t have enough superlatives to describe this venue. It is simply the best place I have ever seen a game. It’s magnificent architecture, the right size, intimate even with 50K, well designed concourses, great sightlines, good acoustics. I would go to GDL again just to go back to that stadium.

Holy crap, was it loud in there. It started when they sang in voice a mariachi song for the team. I think it was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mvt19ORBMs
I wish we had a mariachi song!

Then they were just loud, in waves. When Chivas scored, when Gio was working the refs, whenever they had good possession, when they hit that post, and in general. We did kind of make them quieten down, after the second goal, but by about the 55th minute they were back. They were especially impressive in penalties. I believe they were really an intimidating factor there, the place was just shaking as each of our guys was approaching to place the ball. I know Bradley’s ball moved after he put it down, I can’t help but think the noise caused that.

The only time there was silence was when Delgado missed. I wish I had video of that. Everybody in the stadium, and I mean everybody, had a look of disbelief, their head in their hands. For us, what could have been, for them, the great escape. I will see that scene in my mind for a long, long time.

Departure

Efficient and unremarkable, except for the gigantic fire near the stadium, and our buses, that was set off by an errant firework (they fired a whole bunch off when Chivas won).
http://espndeportes.espn.com/futbol/mexico/nota/_/id/4237554/incendio-a-un-lado-del-estadio-akron-mientras-chivas-se-coronaba

It gave an already surreal night an even more surreal ending. We got some beers afterwards, but nobody was in much of a mood for talking. A lot of “10,000 mile stares”. So close. Goddammit.

Hechas en Mexico

The Mexican papers all covered the story of the first and only team composed entirely of Mexican nationals to go to the CWC. It was front page news. It is genuinely worth acknowledging as a significant accomplishment, it seems to me.

Ashtone Morgan and Jonathan Osorio are our national heroes. Late in the game, Jordan Hamilton had a half chance on a ball from Jay Chapman. Imagine if that had been a real chance….

Made in Canada. We have a ways to go. But we are on the way.

Red CB Toronto
04-29-2018, 10:18 PM
Thanks for the wonderful read and all the insight you have brought to the boards over the years, its much appreciated.


This is not about the game per se. This is about going to see the game in Guadalajara - I’ll use “GDL”, the airport code, from here, to help avoid carpal tunnel. (A bunch of supporters have a “That Night in Toronto” tshirt about the MLS Cup win, hence the title of this - I heard the line from someone who made the joke the night before the game.)

First, a serious thank you to all the Red Patch Boys, who delivered a great road trip experience with respect to stadium/ticket logistics in the trickiest situations, and are incredibly welcoming to fellow TFC travellers they don’t yet know. I have been around the team and the boards from the very beginning, but I am not a south end guy, don’t do many road trips, and am a lot older than most of these folks. They couldn’t have been nicer to me. Special mentions for Flush, renda-10 and ChrisFizik (they were the most obvious stemwinders, I may have missed other deserving folks), as well as max527, who spent all day in the broiling heat Monday and hooked me up with tickets.

Get a globe and a string. Try to find somewhere further from Toronto in Concacaf than GDL. Basically the only places farther away are Anchorage and Panama City. You can fly direct to Panama, but you have to change planes to get to GDL. It’s the end of the line. A perfect metaphor.

All that to say, it is a long trip, further door to door than flying to Madrid or Copenhagen. It was 11 hours each way door to door for me, and I had pretty good connections in Mexico City. It was 15-20 hours for some people. It is an effing huge commitment to go to this, especially midweek. I took three days off work, and was only on the ground for 36 hours.

Tickets

I had originally planned to sit in good seats (I went with an old friend, neither of us are south enders), walk in incognito, have a look around, then put on some TFC gear once assured of the situation. This had worked well for my companion in the two earlier games, he had gone to the earlier games in Monterrey and Mexico City (I asked around, there are probably about five known TFC fans who did this, the “El Tri-fecta”!).

But it became increasingly obvious in the days leading up to the game that the ticket situation was a bit of a shambles. There was no public sale on their local equivalent of ticketmaster, communications about when that would occur was nonexistent. Twitter was full of complaints from Chivas SSH that they couldn’t get on either. A lot of people had bought expensive airline tickets, but had no certainty on seats. Stubhub tickets were USD $200+ (most of them were USD $350-500 each). The team/RPB were also being mostly kept in the dark until the weekend, so even with the supporters, there was a fair bit of anxiety around this.

The public sale finally happened on the Monday, but the website was useless, it kept crashing, and there were epic lines at the stadium itself, so much so that it got covered on the local news.

https://twitter.com/_gonsed/status/988551198914441216
https://twitter.com/AztecaDeportes/status/988535864853594112

RPB and the other supporters got their tickets on Tuesday, and we were happy to revise our plans and be part of the supporters at the game.

At breakfast in my hotel Wednesday, I met three guys in Chivas jerseys… and San Diego Chargers hats. They told me that there was massive travelling support at this game, mostly from Southern California, their flight from Tijuana (“TJ”) had been 100% Chivas fans singing, and that those people in the ticket lines were mostly scalpers reselling to the Mexican-Americans coming down for the game.

GDL

I walked around for a couple of hours in the early evening Tuesday, and all day Wednesday. GDL is a huge city, bigger than TO, a lot of sprawl but surrounded by pretty hills, and it has a charming downtown district, Centro. I had only been to beach resorts in Mexico, so this was new to me. México auténtico.

GDL feels like southern Spain in Centro (that part of the city is seriously old, cathedral was built in 1568!) and the rest is a Mexican version of LA’s suburbs. It is a big industrial/commercial city and there is obviously a ton of wealth there – big, safe neighbourhoods with beautiful malls, restaurants etc. People in GDL are uniformly pleasant and hospitable, without exception. They were thrilled that people had come to their city, they wanted to show it in the best light.

There are tremendous things to see here just outside the city too – tequila tours (the city of Tequila is an hour away), pyramids, plus great golf and tennis. Oh btw, GDL is the cosmetic surgery capital of North America, so for those so inclined ….

Safety on the streets is a recurring question/theme. I never felt uncomfortable once, and I didn’t hear about anyone else who did either. There is a very visible police presence in the better neighbourhoods of GDL. But there are obviously serious problems that aren’t affecting the tourist/business areas …. this story dominated the news while we were there (don’t click if you have a weak stomach)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/04/24/three-mexican-film-students-were-killed-their-bodies-dissolved-in-acid-authorities-say/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.50c92fa2cd48

So there are awful stories there, as there are throughout Mexico really. No escaping that.

No matter. Bad things can happen once in a blue moon in Toronto too, sadly, and there are places I don’t feel safe at home either.

I would go back to GDL in a heartbeat. I would like to go back. I would take my family there.

The Night Before

RPB guys had set up a chat room and I met a big group of them for drinks the night before. Had a really great time. Learned that I liked tequila a lot more than I thought I did, especially white tequila (blanco). The best tequila for me is Don Julio 70, thanks to Rick from Puerto Vallarta for the pro tip!

I think it helped that we were in a hole going into the second leg. Tuesday night, the feeling was, victory of course, but whatever will be will be. Weirdly, that made the buildup more fun and relaxed. We were loose, and in the way that hardcore fans delude themselves into thinking that they are in cosmic sync with the players, it made me think that the TFC players must be loose too.

Getting to the Game

The rendezvous was at 5.30pm (which is a long time before kickoff, which was 8.30pm local), but, as we would see, there were reasons for that. TFC had chartered two buses for the ~100 supporters (thanks Bill Manning!) Best I could tell, it was about 50/40/10, Inibriatti/RPB/USector. The pickup was at a bar in a nice neighbourhood called, amusingly… the York Pub!

Traffic is bad in GDL, Estadio Akron is in a western suburb, and it was rush hour. We slowly made our way out there. There were amusing reactions all along the way as people realized the buses were filled with “Toronto Aficion”, and some people on the bus played it up, waving Canadian flags. Some other people on the buses became uneasy about this, worrying that it might make us a target. But in the end, people mostly laughed at us. It kind of felt to me like the way Torontonians might look at Mexican hockey supporters, or the way anyone might look at otters or seals. Cute! They did not see us as serious opponents, and thought this was in the bag. Good.

They approach to the stadium is dramatic, “the UFO” sits alone in a valley, with a humungous Mexican flag looming beside it…. But the access is a single two lane road, and the traffic jam was enormous. Luckily we got special treatment, and were allowed to use a blocked road, so all in all it only took us about an hour and 10 minutes to get out there. (But it must have been 2 hours + for most people, and the stadium did not fill up until well after kickoff.)

Away Support in the Lions Den

This was amazing to me, and is worth retelling in detail. I have never seen anything like this. (I suspect Italy and France have this level of crazy for big games, but I don’t think any of Spain, Germany or 21st century England do)

We got off the buses and were in a barricaded section far from other arriving ticket holders. The barricades were manned by no less than 50 fully kitted riot police, some of whom were carrying shields. We milled around in the sun, tracking the Leafs and Raptors on our phones, waiting for the OK to go in. Meanwhile I got to talking to one of the cops – he told me they were all rooting for us, that their evening would be better if Toronto won, and that most of the police there were “Atlas”, ie Atlas supporters, from the other side of town. That’s apparently always how they staff it – they don’t want Chivas supporters protecting the away support, and they have Chivas supporter cops protect the away support at Atlas games!

After about half an hour of this, we got the word, and got personal escorts into the stadium. I am not exaggerating –they bring fans up to the ticket gates in very small groups. There, I got the most thorough patdown I have ever received, and was allowed in.

The entrance, stairwell, concourse amenities, and of course the secton itself, are all walled/barricaded off, with what had to be another 100 police officers in riot gear enforcing that. It’s truly a virtual cage. The whole thing made me wonder what the hell was going to happen once we got in there.

Some funny details – the visiting support section has no seats, it’s open terrace style, unlike the rest of the stadium. They had beer, and food (bad American knockoff fast food only, sadly), but you had to drink your beer in the concourse.

The guys all did a great job singing (I kind of lost my voice early), which really got the Chivas supporters going, many of their chants were reactions to ours. It was impressive. I don’t know if the players could hear it (it was so loud in there in general) but the travelling support more than did its part.


There was no real animosity towards us from the Chivas fans at any point. We did get beer showers, once when they scored, and a second time when they won, but it was not that big a deal to me (it did upset a couple of other people). I do wonder what might have happened if we had won the game. Sadly we’ll never know.

The one ugly incident that occurred happened late in the first half, just before Seba scored, when a drunk Chivas supporter charged the line of cops protecting our section for some reason. The cops muscled him out, brought him through the barricade, into our mens washroom, and beat him up (possibly quite badly – I didn’t see it, but others around me saw them carry the guy out).

After penalties, we put our feelings aside and all joined in a “Chivas” chant and applauded their team/fans, which generated a huge wave of positive reaction. Up went a huge “Toronto, Toronto, Toronto” back at us. It was a nice way to finish, in a difficult moment for us.

Overall, I came away with the impression that 99.9% of the Chivas aficion treated us with respect and camaraderie. It was not the nationalistic fiesta I had feared it might be.

Estadio Akron

I don’t have enough superlatives to describe this venue. It is simply the best place I have ever seen a game. It’s magnificent architecture, the right size, intimate even with 50K, well designed concourses, great sightlines, good acoustics. I would go to GDL again just to go back to that stadium.

Holy crap, was it loud in there. It started when they sang in voice a mariachi song for the team. I think it was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mvt19ORBMs
I wish we had a mariachi song!

Then they were just loud, in waves. When Chivas scored, when Gio was working the refs, whenever they had good possession, when they hit that post, and in general. We did kind of make them quieten down, after the second goal, but by about the 55th minute they were back. They were especially impressive in penalties. I believe they were really an intimidating factor there, the place was just shaking as each of our guys was approaching to place the ball. I know Bradley’s ball moved after he put it down, I can’t help but think the noise caused that.

The only time there was silence was when Delgado missed. I wish I had video of that. Everybody in the stadium, and I mean everybody, had a look of disbelief, their head in their hands. For us, what could have been, for them, the great escape. I will see that scene in my mind for a long, long time.

Departure

Efficient and unremarkable, except for the gigantic fire near the stadium, and our buses, that was set off by an errant firework (they fired a whole bunch off when Chivas won).
http://espndeportes.espn.com/futbol/mexico/nota/_/id/4237554/incendio-a-un-lado-del-estadio-akron-mientras-chivas-se-coronaba

It gave an already surreal night an even more surreal ending. We got some beers afterwards, but nobody was in much of a mood for talking. A lot of “10,000 mile stares”. So close. Goddammit.

Hechas en Mexico

The Mexican papers all covered the story of the first and only team composed entirely of Mexican nationals to go to the CWC. It was front page news. It is genuinely worth acknowledging as a significant accomplishment, it seems to me.

Ashtone Morgan and Jonathan Osorio are our national heroes. Late in the game, Jordan Hamilton had a half chance on a ball from Jay Chapman. Imagine if that had been a real chance….

Made in Canada. We have a ways to go. But we are on the way.

MightyDM
04-29-2018, 11:38 PM
Ensco, absolutely fantastic. I will always regret being unable to be a pat of this - thank you for helping those of us who could not be there to feel like we were.

Brilliant, and I love your respect for the Chivas supporters. Represent.

ensco
04-30-2018, 06:16 AM
Thanks, guys, for all your kind words.

icecoldbeer
05-01-2018, 07:30 AM
Great write-up! Thank you for sharing the experience for those who couldn't make it themselves!

Pinkie
05-01-2018, 07:43 AM
I was in GDL for the game and your write-up pretty much captures everything accurately! I definitely don't regret my decision to go. It was an incredible experience.

magmadragon
05-01-2018, 12:59 PM
Thank you so much for the writeup. This addresses so many of my non-game questions.

pfk
05-01-2018, 01:51 PM
Fabulous write up, ensco! I felt like I was there.

TFC Tifoso
05-01-2018, 01:53 PM
great write up of the experience....good read and most of all. glad you all made it back home safely....

C.Ronaldo
05-01-2018, 02:27 PM
thanks for taking the time to write this up