What Mexico Taught Us This World Cup
I need to confess something, and my whole family is going to read this, so let me just say it plainly.
On Sunday night, for the first time in my life, I cheered for Mexico.
I am Honduran. Catracha to the bone. And if you know anything about CONCACAF, you know what that means. Honduras and Mexico do not cheer for each other. We are the little sibling who never forgets, the neighbor who keeps score. We are, in fact, one of only three teams to ever beat Mexico in a competitive match at the Estadio Azteca. We did it in 2013, and we have been dining out on it ever since. Cheering for El Tri is simply not something we do.
Until this World Cup.
Something shifted this summer, and I felt it here in New Orleans, a city that holds the largest Honduran community in the United States. We watched every single match at Finn McCool's, an Irish pub in Mid-City that somehow becomes the beating heart of world fútbol every four years. We made friends there. We sang there. We laughed until we cried, and then we just cried. Strangers became family over pints and penalty kicks, and by the knockout rounds, we were hugging people whose names we had only learned during the group stage.
Honduras was not in this tournament. But Mexico was hosting it, carrying it, and playing like a team possessed... four matches without conceding a single goal, the Azteca shaking with more than 80,000 voices, a whole country daring to believe in the quinto partido they have been chasing since 1986.
And somewhere in that group stage, I stopped watching Mexico as a rival and started watching them as familia.
Sunday night was heartbreak, the kind only fútbol can deliver. A storm delayed kickoff, as if the sky itself was nervous. Then Jude Bellingham scored twice in less than two minutes and silenced a stadium that is never silent. But Mexico did what Mexico does, what all of us do... they fought. Julián Quiñones pulled one back before halftime. England went down a man, Raúl Jiménez buried a penalty, and for thirty relentless minutes El Tri threw everything at that goal while the Azteca roared like a living thing. The equalizer never came. It ended 3-2, the first time Mexico has ever lost a World Cup match on home soil, and the players left the pitch in tears.
So what did Mexico teach us this World Cup?
They taught us that pride and rivalry can live in the same heart, and that when the moment is big enough, one steps aside for the other. That being Latino is bigger than any border, any qualifier, any old grudge we polish like a trophy. When Mexico played, all of Latin America was on that pitch... the Hondurans, the Guatemaltecos, the Salvadoreños, the Colombianos, all of us who grew up with fútbol as our first language.
They taught us that hosting matters. That opening your home to the world, imperfectly and beautifully, is its own kind of victory. New Orleans knows this better than anyone. We understand what it means to throw the party even when your heart is heavy, to give the world your best even when the ending is not the one you wrote.
And they taught us that heartbreak in front of the people you love is still better than safety in silence. Coach Javier Aguirre, saying goodbye to the Azteca after this match, told his players to leave with their heads held high. That is not a loser's consolation. That is the truth.
Honduras, te amo siempre. Nothing changes that. But Sunday night, at a table at Finn McCool's, surrounded by friends I did not have a month ago and my people from every corner of Latinoamérica, I yelled for Mexico like they were mine.
Because for one summer, they were.
They were all of ours.
With a second line in my step, wherever the rhythm carries me,
Karlita
Karla Marie “Karlita” Cochran
In the Spotlight 504 New Orleans
