“People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance”.
― Niccolo Machiavelli
It begins. The back and forth. The ‘Toma y Daca’. The Tit for Tat. All the off field banter, the media talking heads, tongues wagging, looking for the ‘hueso’, behind the smokescreen of half-truths and superfluous data, all part of the machinery which surrounds both teams, especially America.
The 22 players that will take the field at Akron Stadium tonight are the probably the least interested and furthest away from the media storm that rages every year that these two Mexican soccer giants face each other.
The canteranos know the demand and wait anxiously for the moment the ocarina sounds. The other players in a greater or lesser degree are also on the lookout, after all, you don't always get a chance to play a classic and less so in the playoffs.
Although there have been times when the rivalry seemed to be waning, it is clear that the rivalry between Chivas and America persists. Despite the fact that it was a rivalry born in offices, it is a game that involves pride, history and tradition.
Guadalajara, over the years, became the Campeonisimo. The Rebaño accumulated titles and became the most beloved and popular team in Mexico. Meanwhile, America, acquired on July the 22nd of 1959 by Emilio Azcarraga Milmo, the owner of Telesistema Mexicano. Aware of the need to turn Los Cremas into an important club within Mexican soccer, he decided that his team would be the counterpart of El Chiverío.
If the Red and White Squad was the good and beloved team, they would be the villain and the hated one. Advertising campaigns, intense promotion and the unceasing search for antagonism have helped create the voragine which is now the Clasico. A rivalry between the Provincianos and the Capital which has evolved over the past 60 years, persists to this day. Mexican Nationalism against Foreign Invasion. The confrontation of two antagonistic ideologies of living, feeling and playing soccer.
The teams and their leaders have remained quiet for the moment, respectful of the adversary. Both Vucetich and Herrera, quietly analytical. Calculating. The media uproar was not created by them. The controversary, sparked by others.
Without a doubt, they are the most popular teams in Mexican soccer. Without Chivas and America our soccer would have no meaning, no color, no passion, no euphoria. When the two squads face each other, they generate an effervesce that makes a whole nation freeze.
El Clasico is beyond a simple sports rivalry. Beyond a simple loss or victory. This Derby is about pride and is played to the limit to defend that pride.
Some believed that gone were the days of intense, back and forth games, born of passion and most importantly 'amor a la camiseta'. The balance has changed. Recently the young blood of the two Canteras have made their voices heard. The foreign incorporations are also on the youngish side, a characteristic necessary for the versatile, dynamic game play of strategic pressing and lightning counterattacks.
El Clasico. El Equipo del Pueblo, 100% Mexican, versus ‘Los Millionarios’, los ‘Billetudos’, los ‘Odiados’. When all the smoke from the incessant babble drowning the airwaves and bombarding social media has cleared, the brass tacks of the matter is simple math.
The guy with the most marbles at the end of the game wins. Plus the real Chiva or Crema ‘hinchas’ know that the objective is not only the win, but the pleasure of being witness to the others loss.
Y sin llorar, eh? Whatever the outcome, whichever the result, just remember Rodolfo Pizarro’s famous words…
“Prepare your hearts as a fortress, there will be no other”.
– Francisco Pizzarro (Spanish Explorer, Conquerer of the Incan Empire).
Wise words, in times like these.
