June 17, 2004 5:56 AM

Another dispatch from our foreign correspondent

Our intrepid TPRS foreign correspondent (my stepson Adam) has checked in again from Oaxaca, Mexico, this time with an examination of Mexican soccer and earthquakes....

This past weekend saw the finals of Mexican professional soccer come and go.. For those of you not familiar with the system, here is how the final series goes down:

There are two (2) games. It took forever to get a rational explanation out of someone for why there were an even number of games, but I finally got one. They play one full game at each team´s home stadium. The scores of the two games are summed, and the team with the most total goals wins the series. If the goal total is a tie at the end of the second game, they play an overtime period of 15 minutes. If the score remains tied, they play a second overtime, also 15 minutes. If the score is STILL tied after all of this, they do a shootout.

Well, the two teams involved were the UNAM Pumas (from Mexico City) and the Chivas from Guadlajara. Everyone in my family and the people who run the school were rooting for the Pumas, so I did as well. The first game was Thursday night. The people who run the Oaxaca branch of Solexico are huge Pumas fans, so they hosted a nicely-sized party at the school. The price of entry was a 6-pack of beer. The Chivas and Pumas batteled it out for 90 minutes, each team scoring once (when the Pumas scored, Oscar, the director of the school, jumped up and shouted "Chinga tu madre!" which you can probably translate for yourself). Since there is a second game, if the first one is tied at the end of 90 minutes, it ends in a tie, which bothers me greatly (worst thing about the NHL as well).

The second game was Sunday at noon. I went out for breakfast and came back with some beer for the six or so people that I thought would be watching the game at the house. When I got back to the house, I found 20+ people huddled around the big-screen, and they had all brought beer. Nothing like drinking beer and watching sports at noon on a Sunday. The game was very back and forth, but neither team managed to score in regulation. This meant overtime, free futbol. In overtime, the Pumas had a couple of really good scoring chances, but managed to screw them up as I previously thought only the Oilers or Aggies could. Due to these screwups, we were treated to a second round of overtime goodness. By now we are well over two hours into the event, and all the beer has been consumed. The fans (there were a couple Chivas fans among us, but 15+ Pumas fans) were loud and profane, it was wonderful. During the second overtime the Chivas blew two easy goal opprotunities, the end result being a 0-0 score at the end of the second overtime.

It is said that a penalty shot in hockey is "the most exciting play in sports." I beg to differ. A soccer shootout is far and away the most dramatic, exciting sports event I have ever seen, especially in a championship game. In the shootout, each team gets 5 shots. The team who scores the most on their 5 shots wins. If they tie, they take shots one after the other until one team scores and the other team misses, kind of like a spelling bee.

Both teams score on their first 4 shots. With each team having only one more shot, the drama is really heavy and even the drunkest of fans are silent. The Pumas 5th shot is first. Their best player shoots low and left, the goalie guesses high and right, and GOOOOOOOL!!! So now it is up to the Chivas to score and send the game into a sudden death shootout. The player lines up the shot and aims high and right. The goalie had guessed low and right, but it wouldn´t matter as the shot sailed about 4 inches wide of the goal. Pumas win! It was an awesome game, and the ending was very dramatic, like buzzer-beating shots in the finals of the NBA.

This is already really long, so I will only briefly describe the earthquakes. On Monday, at about 5pm, there was a 5.3 magnitude earthquake in southern Mexico. That sounds really bad, but the way the buildings are built, it could hardly be felt. I was watching TV and my chair was vibrating a little, I figured it was my mind playing tricks on me. Only later did I learn that there was an earthquake. It was kinda neat. Tuesday night there was another one, 4.something, at like 3am. It woke me up because the bed was shaking and I could hear the plates in the kitchen rattling a bit. All in all nothing was damaged and nobody was hurt, and it wasn´t even really scary.

The Lakers lost, Tom Delay is in hot water with ethics complaints, and I am going to a bar with my friends. It has been a great couple of days.

Damn, I miss that kid....

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on June 17, 2004 5:56 AM.

Guess what I'm getting for Father's Day?? was the previous entry in this blog.

I hear the Martyr's Memorial alone is worth the trip is the next entry in this blog.

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