May 20, 2007

As we entered Azteca Stadium, the guy behind us in line advised me to stuff my belt into my underwear so as to avoid having it confiscated by security, as a possible weapon.

The rules for attending a soccer game in Mexico, it seemed, were a little different than they are at home.

We had come to see home-town team Club América - the New York Yankees of Mexican soccer – play Santos, a club team from Brazil, in the Copa Libertadores.

(We would have preferred to see América play their arch rival, Guadalajara's Chivas, in the Liguilla Clausura 2007 semi-finals the next night but we couldn’t justify the ticket price on our road trip budget).

Azteca Stadium had been on my radar ever since Mexico had hosted the World Cup in 1986. It was the first and only time that Canada had qualified for the world’s premier sporting event and it has become part of our soccer lore. Canada lost all three games it played – against France, Hungary and the Soviet Union - without scoring a goal. It was pretty satisfying to finally get there.

(Azteca Stadium was also the site of the Canadian team's worst defeat ever, a 8-0 loss to Mexico in the World Cup qualifying for USA 1994).

As we made our way up the steep stairs to our seats in the upper bowl of Mexico’s soccer shrine, we were both left breathless for a moment by the clapping, chanting and beating drums of 110,000 fans who were clad in a sea of yellow shirts, scarfs, capes and headbands, Many of them were standing pressed against the barbed wire fence that divided the upper and lower bowls.

The only downside of the night was that after undertaking some covert action and dishing out $30 bucks for two scalper tickets, we were informed that Ticketmaster had been giving away the tickets for free to anyone who bought tickets for the next night's playoff game.

Key Facts & Figures:

-Tickets, soccer game: $15/each