The road most taken

Alexis Sanchez flexed his ankle. It was a subtle and genteel motion, as if he was Leonard Bernstein guiding the Vienna Philharmonic’s transition from adagio to allegro. The Arsenal forward’s pass to Arturo Vidal—the man referred to as King Arthur because of his command of the soccer midfield— squeezed between two Mexican defenders and waited for His Highness to return the ball to sender. At full gallop and in one motion the clairvoyant Vidal received and  pushed the ball into a space he knew Sanchez would inhabit a split second later.

In that moment, Sanchez-Vidal made Astaire and Rogers seem like drunken oafs. It was a combination the Chilean teammates would repeat time and again during the night but the pro-Mexican crowd of 68,000 at Qualcomm Stadium were as impressed as napping cats.

Their adulation was reserved for El Tri, which spent most of the game struggling to adjust to Chile’s attacking pressure. But with five minutes left in the game late substitute Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez eluded the man whose only job at the time was to prevent him from scoring. Hernandez, playing on his 28th birthday headed the ball into the back of Chile’s net. Chicharito is to Mexico what a first born is to a doting mother and in that moment all of Mexico’s fans— in the stadium and in their country—came together and their voices rattled the atmosphere. It was as if God had punched the earth.

On the soccer calendar it was a meaningless affair. A friendly; a tune up for both countries that are participating in the Copa America Centenario, the 100th anniversary of the South American futbol championship being played in the United States that started June 3. It was the last stop for both teams as they prepared for the Copa America.

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The road to Santa Clara, where the first match of the tournament was being being played between the United States and Colombia, began at the Washington Street onramp to Interstate 5 at around 2 p.m the day after Chicharito’s birthday present to himself.

It passed through congested North County, where the cause of traffic delays is seldom revealed to agitated drivers, and curved through the stuffed, gridlocked freeways and surface streets of the City of Angels. Five hours later it lead up and over the Grapevine past last chance filling stations planted next to fast food restaurants. It led toward a sun that was setting behind squat mountains, hairy mountains.

The road to the Copa started its end as it drifted through a darkened Gilroy, where the aroma of garlic was as welcoming as an Italian grandmother’s Christmastime hug and it concluded just after midnight in front of Levi’s Stadium, a billion dollar edifice where adults pay large sums of money to watch grown men play games.

The road to Santa Clara and the Copa, for many, is an escape route leading away from the mundane and melodrama of their 9 to 5 lives. For others it is a path that leads to something bigger.

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Rumors of the United States hosting the 100th anniversary of the Copa America had been swirling gently since 2011, when the quadrennial tournament was hosted by Argentina. It was an idea dismissed as fanciful given that the Copa America is a soccer tournament for only the countries of South America (plus one or two guests from outside regions). But the rumors had substance and by the summer of 2015, when the next tournament was held in Chile, confirmation was imminent.

This year’s 100th anniversary of the soccer tournament features 10 countries from South America and six from the North and Central America region, including the United States and is an opportunity to celebrate one of the world’s oldest sporting competitions. It is also a massive opportunity to capitalize on this country’s gargantuan Latino population and the emerging white middle-class soccer-liking culture.

It is also a chance to gauge how capable the United States is of hosting a future World Cup, where teams from around the world converge for a month long futbol-inspired festival of games, sportsmanship, cheering, singing and weeping. And lastly, it is an opportunity to gauge how strong the United States Men’s National Soccer team is in relation to countries whose players who have been kicking a ball since their grandmothers first agreed to know their husbands biblically.

After their first meeting against Colombia last Friday, the answer is the U.S. men’s team is as strong as a fully clothed brick layer trapped in a rip current.


Davalos is following the Copa America Centenario where he can, when he can. You can follow him at your leisure on Twitter for updates: @carlosgrumbles.