Not much to celebrate but Mexicans still celebrate at El Angel

Mexico had a disappointing end to their Group Stage of the World Cup with a defeat to Sweden, but fans still celebrated making it through to the Round of 16 after South Korea’s victory over Germany. The accomplishment is no small feat and this makes it seven straight Mexico qualifications to the Round of 16. Also with Germany not qualifying out of the Group Stage for the first time in their history, this means that Mexico and Brazil are the only teams to have done such an accomplishment for so long

A big defeat wasn’t the result fans wanted, and it showed in a less enthusiastic crowd in El Angel. It also looked to have less attendance than other days, although the game falling on a workday didn’t help things. Still, the crowd was big and it helped that the Mexico City government decided to organize better and had a stage and music to improve the fan’s motivation. The party atmosphere really improved because of this and fans seemed to enjoy the music. A couple of Korean flags were also present. In other places, fans of Korean descent were raised high by Mexicans fans happy for the gift of going through.

Mexican’s expectations for this World Cup have always been volatile, and it seems now with this defeat things will go back to normal after there was even talks about Mexico being a candidate to win it all. But this might actually help Mexico, as it seems that the team does better when they have lowered expectations like it did at the start of the World Cup. At the end of the day, fans should be happy about the performance so far, even though today it was more a sense of relief mixed with disappointment.

Rafael Hernandez