jenni_blog | TFC VS CRUZ AZUL: SARIC AND MISTA BOTH SCORE FIRST GOALS FOR TEAM! (Reply)

What a night! Let me start from the beginning.

First, I decided to wear my Mexico national team shirt from the winter...it has long sleeves and is nice & warm. You never know what the weather is going to be like down at BMO Field even in summer. Jamie and I got to the train in the nick of time. We had to RUN like mad downstairs, through the tunnel and up another flight of stairs to get on board JUST IN TIME!!! While I was still catching my breath, a guy wearing a Toronto shirt across the aisle from where we sat down hollered to me, "Hey! You don't LOOK Mexican!" He was smiling and laughing and was sitting with a very cute Mexican-looking boy and a blonde girl. He was obviously joking so I replied that I wasn't Mexican but I liked the Mexican NT a lot and supported them in the WC. Once we got to the stadium there were many more Mexican fans although not a lot in comparison to the number of Toronto fans, but several guys came up to me and yelled "Vamos Cruz Azul!" and punched me in the shoulder, etc. That was fun.

Jamie and I were just finding our seats after buying some Red Bulls at one of the concession stands when we heard an almighty roar go up. I looked at the big screen and saw that Martin Saric had just scored, at 2 minutes and something into the match! We missed it! *headdesk* But we took our seats...not bad...18 rows from the front, and got into the game. A few minutes went by and a very pretty Mexican girl came over and took a seat right in front of me on the end of the row. She was staring at me when she came over so I figured she must have noticed my shirt. (We were surrounded by fans in Toronto shirts...nobody else in a Mexican shirt in our section except me.) The guy next to her told her that someone else was sitting there so she had to move over a few seats to my right where there was an empty seat. She told us in pretty good English that she was sitting over with the Cruz Azul Ultras but they drove her crazy...she actually said "Ai ai ai" and waved her hands around her face. LOL. So all the men sitting around us said, "Oh, that's alright, you can sit here, no problem." LOL. Anyway, I'm only mentioning her because she looked like a WAG. I was so sure she was. She had beautiful hair, very long, she was wearing stylish clothing, and she had those ripped jeans that seem to be popular again with a light beige jacket. She was carrying a black quilted leather handbag with a gold chain shoulder strap. She also had an i-phone in a green case and was carrying a huge bag of popcorn, which I only saw her eat about ten kernels out of. LOL. It was still full by the end of the match. The fact she was all alone and had come from the traveling supporters' section made me think she must have been a WAG. That and the fact she was very pretty and so well-dressed.

Okay, so on to my match impressions. I was shocked to see that Cruz Azul did NOT put their best team out there! Specifically there was NO Joel Huiqui (their biggest and best defender) and NO Rogelio Chavez (their awesome right back who is a good scorer as well). Gerardo Torrado of the Mexico NT did not start. Neither did Chaco Gimenez, the Argentine playmaker. Jose Corona, one of the GKs from the NT, also sat on the bench! Yosgart Gutierrez played his FIRST game in goal this season in this match. It just didn't make any sense to me. The fact that both Martin Saric and Miguel Mista (or Mister Mista as Toronto fans call him) scored their FIRST goals for TFC was just bizarre.

I saw Joel on the sub bench and couldn't help but sneak peeks at him all game long. We were sitting right above the Toronto bench at midfield and the Cruz Azul bench was to the left of the TFC bench, so he wasn't that far away. When he and the other subs got up to run around I took pics. When they went to stand and watch the game in front of the Ultras I took pics. When the players came back out after the half-time break Joel walked by himself to the sub bench, sat down all alone and hugged his knees. It was such an adorable gesture. I tried to take a pic but he leaned over and some of the other guys had walked right between me and him so it ruined my view. That kept happening too. After the match was over Joel and the subs walked to the center circle to hand around and talk and exchange shirts with some of the Toronto players. I tried to get a good pic of Joel but he beckoned to one of the trainers who brought over a cooler and got in front of Joel so I couldn't see him. Then Joel bent down to get a bottle of water. And he bent down at least four times to tie his boots seemingly every time I wanted to take a photo. LOL. He seems like the kind of guy who can never keep still! Other observations: Cesar Villaluz is a shortish guy (not as short as Maxi Biancucchi but I don't think anyone is that short...LOL) and has a HUGE HEAD. He's built like a tank too. He's so WIDE. And Maxi is really HOT but really short! And also built very stocky and compact. The hottest players on Cruz Azul: Maxi Biancucchi. Fausto Pinto...god, is he HOT in person! Horacio Cervantes...BIG guy with a HOT body and great hair! Chaco Gimenez is also hot in person. But the HOTTEST (apart from Joel of course) is Javier Orozco! He got subbed on late in the game. Holy god, is he good-looking! He has a really sexy body and fantastic hair!

Towards the end there was a fight between Dwayne DeRosario (TFC's best player) and Fausto Pinto. DeeRo objected to the way Fausto tried to protect the ball in the corner and kicked him or something. At which point Gerardo Torrado ran over, grabbed DeeRo around the throat and shoved him. The linesman was right there and as a result both players got yellow-carded. LOL. All the Cruz Azul players came running over and Yosgart the GK pointed at DeeRo so the ref would know it was him who fouled Fausto. Hahahaha. After that the fans booed Yosgart loudly every time he touched the ball. You DON'T mess with DeeRo in front of the Toronto fans! XD

After the match we went to get the train home but realized we missed it. The next one wouldn't be coming for 45 minutes so we went to get an ice cream to kill time. When we got on the train again we were sitting opposite three Toronto fans wearing TFC shirts. They were all drunk, all young guys. One of them spotted me in my Mexican shirt and started screaming, "CRUZ AZUL SUCKS! CRUZ AZUL SUCKS! CRUZ AZUL SUCKS!" over and over again. Can I tell you how annoying that is when it's late and you're tired? I just *facepalmed* and luckily he got off at the next stop. We had to change cars anyway because we realized we were at the wrong end of the train for getting off.

Once home I was way too hyper to go to sleep right away. I noticed they were showing the match on TV at 1:30 AM so I stayed up and started watching it but fell asleep soon after. Today I am truly knackered and don't know what the hell I am doing. But I photoshopped some of my pics and I'll post them along with some I saved off various sites along with a vid off Youtube of the three goals. It's a good vid. Martin Saric does the most hilarious dance! XD

Cruz Azul played horribly for the first 70 minutes of the match. Chaco Gimenez got subbed on at half-time and Gerardo Torrado sometime later. They tried to get things going but it was too little, too late. Chaco scored off a free kick. It was really nice, but they couldn't score from open play. The Toronto guys were very physical and kept cutting out passes and gaining possession of the ball back off the Mexicans.

Okay, here's the vid:

And MY pics. LOL. I cropped some of them and tried to sharpen them up but they're not perfect by any means!

These are all my JOEL ones. (Joel is the darkish guy with longish hair and the TALLEST one.)