I am perversely proud of driving from Tijuana to Mexico City for the 2006 World Cup qualifying match of March 2005, at the Estadio Azteca. The report, below, recounts the final leg — from Guadalajara to the distrito federale. As it turned out, co-pilot Damian Secore and I encountered just about zero problems across a […]

[Read more →]

Another installment in the 2005 Tijuana-to-Mexico City road trip report on a 2006 World Cup qualifying match pitting the United States against Mexico. I had forgotten about spending time, the previous night, in steamy San Blas watching the festivities for Holy Week. It was Mexico at its most festive and friendly. The 425 miles to […]

[Read more →]

This was one of the more interesting legs of the 2005 road trip across Mexico to see the United States’ World Cup qualifier at Estadio Azteca. We had seen the map, and we knew we were leaving the desert, but we did not fully anticipate the massive shift in climates, once we entered Nayarit state. […]

[Read more →]

This is about United States versus Mexico soccer. World Cup qualifying soccer at that … But this is now, not 2005 — as it is in the parts of the 12-year-old series I have been republishing on this blog in recent days. The U.S. national soccer team got a very nice result today, in Mexico […]

[Read more →]

On our Tijuana-to-Mexico City road trip ahead of a 2006 World Cup qualifier, back in 2005, we noticed that the main north-south road on the western side of Mexico goes right through Navajoa — where Los Angeles Dodgers pitching star Fernando Valenzuela was born. Back in 2005, I assumed readers would not be interested in […]

[Read more →]

This ran as Day 1 in the March 2005 Futbol Diaries road-trip series — ahead of the U.S. national team playing Mexico in a 2006 World Cup qualifying match at Azteca Stadium. It can stand a bit more context. We had begun the day in Southern California, and we were driven down to San Diego […]

[Read more →]

The United States and Mexico are set to resume the greatest rivalry in North American soccer, four days hence, in a 2018 World Cup qualifying match to be played in Mexico’s Estadio Azteca. And the thought of it prompted memories of the 1,800-mile road trip two of us took from Tijuana, Mexico, to Mexico City […]

[Read more →]

Francesco Totti ended his 25-season Italian football career over the weekend, getting in his 786th match for Roma, the only club he has ever known. By the time it was over, Totti, 40, and many of his legion of fans were in tears, shattered by the end of an era. The New York Times suggests […]

[Read more →]

Four years ago I suggested a parlor game of my own devising. As I recall, it came from my staring at a four-digit clock on a treadmill. Start with a year and match it with any event that happened in the 365/366 days attached to that year. For instance: 2016, Cubs win the World Series […]

[Read more →]

In 1999, a U.S. team led by Landon Donovan got to the semifinals of the Fifa Under 17 Championship, in New Zealand. The young Americans played Australia to a 2-2 draw but lost the shootout 7-6 when Kenny Cutler missed his penalty and Oz’s Joshua Kennedy converted. Brazil won the tournament and the Yanks finished […]

[Read more →]