There were seven minutes on the clock when it started, a hundred voices becoming tens of thousands becoming one, the noise spreading around the Azteca as if by contagion.
Cielito Lindo, the de facto anthem of the Mexican national team, is moving at the best of times. Here, supercharged by excitement, nostalgia and about 43 metric tons of opening-day nerves, it threatened to knock you out cold.
“Sing and don’t cry,” goes the refrain, an injunction to smile through life’s sadnesses.
No more than 10 seconds after it began, the chorus line was punctuated by Julian Quinones’ opening goal — a perfect little World Cup moment, as if bestowed from on high. Also from on high: beer.
It rained indiscriminately down from the back seats. So did a seemingly endless supply of card sombreros, handed out before kick-off — decent souvenirs, sure, but even better frisbees.
The effect was dazzling, the sense of release palpable. After all the anticipation, all the nostalgia over Mexico’s World Cup heritage, this occasion could so easily have fizzled out, a party with an early curfew.
Instead, it took flight.
