Pele et al

I don’t pass up the opportunity to visit major soccer stadiums of the world and of course the fuller they are, the more electric the atmosphere.

Mexico City contains a number of sporting arenas, the most prestigious of which is the Aztec Stadium. This is a venue which feels like it just trips off the tongue. Nothing to do with any mystical sounding name, rather because of World Cup tournaments that have been played there in the past, most notably the 1970 finals. It was during this competition that the most gifted footballing side ever to have played in a World Cup made their presence felt. This is not an over statement. There is little argument between pundits on this matter – Pele et al ruled the roost.

And so of course I had to pay a visit to the stadium on match day, in order to pay homage to that hallowed turf.

An hour’s metro ride away from the Zocola, I arrived outside the huge 100,000 seater concrete bowl that is the Aztec Stadium. I harboured delusions about buying the best seat in the house, the price of which would have been affordable by Western standards. However, the queues for tickets were slow moving and so I took a risk, buying a ticket from a tout. He produced a postcard of the stadium’s interior and pointed to the most strategic position. But the tickets did not have any prices printed on them and of course, it was difficult to tell whether he was being truthful about the location of his tickets.

I was not too surprised then, after I did the deal with him and entered the stadium, to find myself amongst the cheapest seats in the house. I was sat immediately behind one goal at ground level, with metal fencing rising up in front of my eyes.

It is one thing visiting a major venue like this, expecting the atmosphere of 1970 to be recreated. It is quite another to enter the stadium for a run of the mill league game and finding that the ground is only, at most, a fifth full – it is a bit of a let down. Even if double the amount of spectators had turned up this Sunday afternoon, it would still have felt like a soulless place –  huge gaps of empty seats, interspersed with the occasional clump of spectators.

The final score was 2-1 to the Mexico City Eagles. Two fine goals, but other than that, quality was not an adjective I could have applied to the football. I found myself daydreaming instead, drifting back thirty-two years…… sat upright in front of my parent’s old black and white television. Philip Malone from next door joining us, because it might have been an old TV, but at least we had BBC2 and they didn’t. And for this particular transmission, if you did not have BBC2 you were stuck. So I drifted back from my current seat in the Aztec Stadium. I stared at the pitch and recalled the images and sounds of June 1970…… ‘Pele to Jarazinio, Jarazinio to Tostao, Tostao back to Pele ……’

The other entertainment on offer related to the gatherings of delinquent teenage hooligans close by. They would unfurl a large banner over the railings, which read something like, ‘We eat people like the Riot Police for breakfast’. A couple of Riot Police officers would wander over from the other side of the fence, stand in front of the flag and  start taking it down. About fifty of the thugs would rush over, gesticulating wildly and angrily at the Police; Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough, and all that.

The teenagers would push themselves up to the fence, within touching distance of the law. A  female officer would half hearted raise her truncheon, as though to say, ‘Come on now, be nice kids and move back a bit.’ And without further a do, the teenagers in return would say, ‘Oh, OK then,’ and back down.  They were after all just a bunch of softies, lacking in experience.