It may just be time to forget the sullied buildup and enjoy the tournament although co-hosts are not optimistic
It has been difficult to go anywhere in Mexico City this week without seeing Hugo Sánchez, the great former Real Madrid striker, trying to sell you something. Raúl Jiménez is on a few billboards and Toluca’s Alexis Vega on a couple of others, but Sánchez remains the king. Football adverts predominate. At the airport a Fifa sign obstructs the view of the arrivals lane for those with foreign passports, which might seem an apt metaphor if immigration procedures, here at least, weren’t absurdly straightforward. Amid the endless traffic, worsened by a teachers’ strike and associated street protests, women wander selling knock-off Mexico shirts.
Does that constitute a pre‑tournament mania? Perhaps not. There’s a newly added football element to many of the murals around Coyoacán, at which many of the Frida Kahlo murals appear to be looking askance – but then stern disapproval was her default look. There are flags hanging from walls and from ceilings in bars and cafes in some areas, but the excitement of waiters and taxi drivers at meeting somebody actually going to the World Cup suggests there hasn’t been any great influx yet. If traffic jams are a sign of excitement, then Mexicans are bang up for it but, anecdotally, few seem to expect much from their side and most seem feel a little frustrated at being a sideshow to Donald Trump’s main event.