As the double-decker bus crawled through Mexico City's streets on its way to the presidential mansion, as thousands upon thousands of people waved flags and honked horns and showered praise on a group of teen-aged boys, the prevailing emotion was unbridled jubilation.
And something else: Relief.
Mexico won the Under-17 World Championships in Peru on Sunday, shedding the distinction as the best soccer-playing nation never to win a world title at any level. It also whitewashed memories of the last time Mexico received so much media attention for its exploits in an international youth tournament.
That was 1988, when FIFA learned that Mexican officials had doctored passports of four over-20 players in qualification matches for the World Youth Championships. The problem: The World Youth Championships is an under-20 tournament.
FIFA came down hard on Mexico, kicking it out of the 1989 tournament and then banning it from all international competition for two years, a span that included the 1988 Summer Olympics. The ban ended before the 1990 World Cup, but it encompassed the qualifying rounds – and you can't go to a World Cup if you can't qualify.
TROPHIES
USD, SDSU men: Both remain undefeated, a combined 12-0-4 overall, and are
ranked in the top 25 after big wins last week. The Toreros won 2-1 at
Portland, and the Aztecs shocked No. 3 Cal 1-0.
Herculez Gomez: The former San Diego Gauchos and Sockers forward scores the
winner in the U.S. Open Cup final, then gets two more in the L.A. Galaxy's 2-1
win against FC Dallas on Saturday.
RED CARDS
Brazil: A rough week. It unravels in the final of Under-17 World
Championships, and the results of 11 league matches are voided as part of a
match-fixing scandal involving a referee.
Pakistan: Soccer authorities impose two-year bans on two female players and
their male coach for instigating a brawl in the first-ever final of the
national women's league.
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Even worse, perhaps, was what it did to its northern rival. With Mexico ineligible for 1990 World Cup qualifying, that opened an extra spot in the CONCACAF region. The United States claimed it, winning 1-0 at Trinidad and Tobago on the final day of qualifying, and reached a World Cup for the first time in 40 years. A sleeping giant was awake.
If the United States doesn't qualify for the 1990 World Cup, it probably doesn't get to host the 1994 World Cup; and if it doesn't host '94, Major League Soccer probably isn't launched two years later.
Yet just when it appeared the United States had not only caught but passed Mexico as the CONCACAF's dominant power, Jesus Ramirez takes a roster of plucky teenagers to Peru for the biennial Under-17 World Championships, and this happens: They win it.
Win it easily.
El Tri outscored its six opponents 16-3 in the two-week tournament, among them a 4-0 semifinal mauling of the Netherlands and a 3-0 decision against five-time champion Brazil in the final. The team flew home ... and was greeted at Mexico City's airport by 150 journalists.
By Monday afternoon, President Vicente Fox was telling them: "All of us feel very proud of this historic triumph that you earned. This great example gives us courage."
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World champs
Mexico became only the 15th country to claim a FIFA men's outdoor world title when it won the Under-17 World Championships in Peru on Sunday. The closest the United States has come is the semifinals of the under-17s in 1999.
Brazil: World Cup (5); U-20s (4); U-17s (3).
Argentina: World Cup (2); U-20s (5).
Germany: World Cup (3); U-20s (1);
Italy: World Cup (3).
Uruguay: World Cup (2).
France: World Cup (1); U-17s (1).
Portugal: U-20s (2).
Soviet Union: U-20s (1); U-17s (1).
Ghana: U-17s (2).
Nigeria: U-17s (2).
England: World Cup (1).
Spain: U-20s (1).
Yugoslavia: U-20s (1).
Saudi Arabia: U-17s (1).
Mexico: U-17s (1).
Notes: The World Cup has been around since 1930. FIFA began holding the Under-20 tournament, or World Youth Championships, biennially in 1977. The Under-17 World Championships have been held every other year beginning in 1985 (although the first three were technically under under-16 events). There is no official FIFA under-23 world championship, with the Olympic Games serving that purpose every four years.
– MARK ZEIGLER
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Their accomplishments no doubt have generated a fair amount of envy from U.S. Soccer, which has poured millions of dollars into youth national teams over the past decade. Since 1999, the U.S. U-17s have had a full-time residency program in Bradenton, Fla., where prospects live and attend school while training exclusively for the next U-17 World Championships.
According to some estimates, the program costs $2 million annually.
"Our budget is a very small fraction of that," Guillermo Cantu, the director of the Mexican federation's national team programs, said by phone yesterday. "We don't have the economic resources that the U.S. has, so we have to have our own plans, our own processes."
It began two years ago with talent scouts scouring the country for players, then a series of fitness camps followed by periodic training camps beginning in February. But the biggest difference from past Mexico youth teams may have been between the ears, a confidence and self-assurance – a swagger, even – that El Tri has rarely displayed on the world stage.
Seven times Mexico teams had reached the quarterfinals of a FIFA world championship (World Cup, Under-20s or Under-17s). Seven times they had lost.
"When we started out," Ramirez, the coach, said, "I told them that they could change the face of soccer in our country and become a force to be reckoned with on the world stage. We stuck firmly to that belief ... These boys are going to revolutionize Mexican soccer."
The first hint came Sunday night, in the first quarter of the NFL game played in Mexico City between the San Francisco 49ers and Arizona Cardinals. Arizona had the ball and, as NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue put it, quarterback Josh McCown "threw one of the least artistic passes in the history of the National Football League."
And the 103,467 in Estadio Azteca erupted. Just roared.
The scoreboard was showing the final score from Peru. Mexico 3, Brazil 0.
"We're starting to open our eyes," Cantu said when asked to articulate the significance of a bunch of teen-aged boys winning an international youth tournament. "Yes, we're an underdeveloped country, but I think we're starting to realize we can be a world power in football if we want to.
"It's a starting point, I think, for a mass awakening."
Mark Zeigler: (619)