If you can make it to the pre-game party, I'd start asking around there. As for taking the Metro, meeting at 5pm and going together sounds like a good plan. Maybe someone (I'll see what I can do) can make a couple of signs and put them up.
Really looking forward to seeing people at Salon Corona's Avenida Paseo de la Reforma 450, Juárez, Cuauhtémoc, 06600 Mexico City, Federal District, Mexico
This was my 3rd Azteca visit and honestly, we've never had it so good. First, the weather. Playing the game at night in 60 degree temps vs. during the day in 95+ temps, was unbelievable. Very lucky there. It doesn't seem like a major issue, but really, it's usually a bloodbath down there, this was nothing nearly that bad. Second, the cops. Mexican police did an amazing job trying to keep us safe. To be sure, Mexican fans showed themselves to be what we expect at this point. They booed the US anthem, they threw objects (beer, coins, bottles, etc), etc. But really, we were surrounded by riot police cops at all times, and the escort we got out of the stadium was unbelievable, they closed off highways for us and drove the 4 AO busses & 1 NYC (ESC) bus out on empty highways all the way back to our hotels. Great job by them, honestly. Yes, shit happened, I saw one guy in my row (upper half) with a deep cut on his forhead, but as far as I know everyone got out ok. So, mad respect to the Cops, they did a LOT of work to keep us as safe as can be. Third, the section. This was the largest US section in the 3 times I've been there, and by far the loudest. The NYC bus left Zona Rosa at 5pm and made it to the stadium in record time, getting there about 5:30. We waited in the parking lot for an hour for the AO busses to show up, but, by 6:30 the cops wanted to march us in, so we went in. We were in our seats by 7pm or so. I believe that the AO busses got caught in traffic (& also left later), so they all rolled in just as the anthems were about to take place. The sections around us were pretty quiet compared to how they were in '09. Not sure if the late hour took some steam out of the locals, but they were pretty nervous; shook after the Hondo game I guess. The longer the game went on, the quieter they got. Really, if you haven't heard Azteca at full throat, you don't know how loud it can get. They did a loud anthem, but other than that weren't very loud all night. It was a pretty tame effort from them, really. We routinely drowned out the sections around us, and we got a lot of reactions after you could clearly hear us singing, and then the fans would get pissed that we were louder than them (in those sections surrounding ours) and they'd chant back. Mexican fans really though, if you watched it, threw more objects at themselves than at US fans for the first 85 minutes. They were displeased with the play and the inability to break us down, so they turned on their team and started booing by the 60th minute. They left pretty unhappy, and you could see streams of them filtering out in the 85th minute. It's not quite Brazil, but Mexican fans have an expectation of how the team is supposed to play, and how they are supposed to beat the US at home. (as we do, to a degree). Once it became obvious that wasn't happening, they were very miserable. If you are watching FoxSportsTV or ESPN2 in Mexico City right now (which is US soccer fan comedy gold), it looks like they are commentating a funeral. Jared Borguetti was making bitter beer face, and 2 plus hours later they are still doing live remotes from Azteca trying to figure out what went wrong. What went right for the US fans today, was a pretty damn good day. 1 point gained, and a VERY easy ride in the stands compared to 2009 (way more objects and missiles from fans that game) in the same section. In 2005 we were in the 'box seats' so we had it pretty good that day, but it was really hot and we suffered for that. Not so tonight. (have a feeling they'll be playing the next game at noon again). I got hit with 1 beer cup (full of liquid, anyway), but by the 85th minute I put on the 'post-game poncho' to keep myself dry from "the elements". There were a lot of "items" thrown back and forth on the march out and in the last 10 minutes of the game, but, we had it way worse when they scored 2 goals on us last time. So, that was basically the match report from the fan section. When you are outnumbered 100,000 to 500 or so, you can't say that you 'outsung' them per se (to the point that you'd hear us on the field, etc), but you can take pride in making an awful lot of noise, and getting a lot of reactions from them tonight. We did that over and over again, and they were really pissed that we kept being audible over their own fans, few of whom were singing other than to try to chant us down. Good times.
Big ups to the US Supporters in Azteca last night. After reading this thread I was trying to pick out some of you guys to look for on ESPN and sure enough schematic (or I assume it was you, towards the front of the section in the vintage Adidas kit) you were giving the mexican fans the business in the section right next to the supporters. Very impressed to see the section so organized and in full voice. Great job to all who attended the match. Hope to have some of you at the WCQ in Salt Lake City in June!
Not my video (as I wasn't there this time - must be why we got out with a point) but shows what post game was like in the section.
Great summary Jamison. We were on the third AO bus. Even with police escorts it took us 2 hours to get to the stadium. What a great experience. So glad we went.
What he said. Basically an unbelievable time and, besides the US performance, the headline for me is the organization with which we as visiting supporters were handled. I was with a group of about 20 who travelled to the stadium by metro. (Highly recommended mode, by the way.) We arrived about 7PM and had no problem hanging out in front of the stadium. We went in about 30 minutes later and had police escort to our section. Sure, the barbed-wire fences may not be so hospitable, but they're there for our protection and certainly reinforce the us-against-them dynamic and Thunderdome feeling. Plus, we had our own bathrooms (!) and concession Coronas were cheap and going down awfully smooth. Then after the game, we all filed out together, again under police escort. All the way to the buses. When it became apparent to the cops that ~20 of us had no bus to board, they put us on a police bus and drove us to a metro station. (Big ups to the two US fans whose Spanish facilitated that outcome and put a smile on our "um, yeah, okay ... now what?" faces.) On account of traffic, by the time we got on the metro, it was 90 minutes after the match had ended and folks seemed to have mellowed a bit, because we got no static and even some friendly talk on the train. Amazing experience, great bunch of guys to hang out with and gutsy performance from a US side that's pretty far from the best we've fielded. Onward!
Here's some video I shot: My camera was hit with a beer near the end so a lot of my video and photos came out poorly.
Incredible time, great fans, everything was perfect. Pregame meetup was solid, good crowd maybe 200 people. Very cool bar. I took metro and thought it was a great experience, tons and tons of photos being taken with us by the mex fans. What an incredible 5 days, Denver to start and azteca to end. couldn't haven been 2 more fun experiences. Major kudos to the us crowd in azteca, standing and singing the entire game. 4 points, huge.
I was at the game, although not with the US section. I was on the opposite corner across the goal on the field level. Props to the 2 US fans sitting in the first row at the corner flag. One guy was in an American flag polo shirt. He got showered in beer and other stuff. It was so bad that security brought them rain coats. I took pictures too but they are on my instagram. So if you're interested, my instagram name is: i_am_martincito
Next time we go to Azteca, I highly recommend taking the metro. Very fun. Mexicans were very friendly the entire time. Even after the game when they loaded us up in the riot van and took us to a metro station that was still filled with Mexicans, they were very friendly. I honestly didn't feel threatened a single time, even though I did get hit with a beer while we were outside post-game. Pregame was so awesome standing around in the plaza and having tons of Mexican fans come up to us asking to take pictures with us like we were celebrities. I'm sure I'm in at least 10 different pictures. Azteca is massive and you should experience it at least once. But the stadium itself sucks. The scoreboard definition is terrible. There are no clocks except for the very top left hand corner of the scoreboard you can't see on the opposite side of the stadium so everybody in our section was keeping a stopwatch on their phone. The scoreboards don't show replays either. It shows fans probably 75% of the time. Part of the problem with Mexicans throwing shit is that there are a few US supporters who are 100% concerned with baiting Mexicans into throwing shit during the game (and after) so the Mexicans are more than happy to oblige. I'm pretty sure some idiot girl threw a flare into a group of people while we were walking out. So dumb. This was a very small number of people but I definitely noticed during the game the people that were looking to start shit, which is funny when you're surrounded by 400 cops.
I hope everybody who attended had as great a time as my group. This was the most mellow of my three games at Azteca, probably because there were no goals. Unlike last time, we couldn't split from the police protection and head to the tren ligero when we hit the bottom of the ramp, so we continued with the group to the buses and towards the exit gate. I must admit singing, "You're not going to Brazil," was very fun. Rather than exit in an unfamiliar place, the four of us turned around, evaded the police lines and joined in with the general population in a shuffle back to the light rail. So we missed the ride in the police van for the second time. We arrived home last night to find the package of seven tickets that arrived on Tuesday afternoon (the day of the game.) US Soccer shipped mine UPS Ground with a delivery date of Friday, March 22nd when I was in Denver and my wife was at work so no one could accept them. Fortunately, I was able to coordinate with USSF to pick up seven tickets at will call in Denver (what convoluted logistics), so now I have seven extras as keepsakes. Too bad no one could use them. My only regret was not staying longer in DF. I urge anyone who loves soccer to attend the Concacaf superclasico at Azteca. If you travel independently and are vigilant about finding a good airfare, you can do the trip very inexpensively. Our hotel was $22/night, a block from the Zocalo. Don't believe the negative hype about Mexico City. If you like cities, you will probably have a great time in DF. I know that my friends who had never been there and joined us on this trip can't wait to return to Mexico City.
Cousin and I had a great time. We bought tix through US Soccer and like others said, they arrived just in time. I had to go to the UPS shipping center to pick them up on Friday since we were leaving town the next day. We had seats in the US section, I assumed, but when we rocked up to Azteca more than 2 hours before kickoff, the cops just told us to sit anywhere in the General Sur section. Let me say that since we're Asian, maybe they didn't know where to send us. We ended up grabbing general seats in a fairly empty section near the video screen. But man did it fill up. The aisles disappeared as they packed it in and took every free inch of cement available. We ended up being crammed in between some college students from Veracruz and a family with kids who were more interested in the food vendors. We shared some smokes and some banter and never felt threatened. Like others mentioned, the crowd was more pissed at there team than anything else. We hightailed it out of there and the crush carried us past the light rail station. Fight back through it was intense. We did what a few others did and took the light rail heading away from the center of town. We went one stop and then got on an empty train heading in the opposite direction. I've done this leaving matches all over the world and don't get why more people don't do this. When we pulled back into Azteca station, we were sitting comfortably in seats while the masses squeezed in. Although my cousin wad the gentleman and got up for a nice pregnant lady. I wish the rivalry would be a little more friendly. Drowning out the American anthem after being asked not too isn't that friendly, but neither is the American section not participating in the wave. Overall, great fun and even 5 days isn't enough to see all that Mexico City has to offer.