Thursday, January 10, 2008

Looking for change

After the America-Atlas match on Wednesday, I happened to take the same elevator down to the bowels of Home Depot Center with some high-ranking FMF officials. Decio De Maria, secretary general of the FMF, and Guillermo Cantu, who oversees all the national teams, along with press chief Mauricio Zavala, were among the 10 or 12 people in the elevator with me. They were going down to administer the coin flip, the final tiebreaker that would determine if Atlas or Toluca would go through to Saturday's final.

De Maria needed a coin, but he told his colleagues that he didn't have any change. Zavala reached into his pockets and pulled out a quarter.

"No, not one of those," De Maria said. "I need a Mexican coin."

Cantu had no change, Mexican or otherwise. Another person on the elevator pulled out a handful of Mexican pesos and De Maria wound up with a five-peso coin, which later Bruno Marioni called correctly as Atlas won the coin flip and advanced to Saturday's finals that way.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

it's these precious nuggets that more writers need to look upon beyond the box score. This post is the first paragraph in what could be a wonderful feature on Mexican soccer in the USA.

JT Soccer said...

Absolutely Adam.

That's why we are so fortunate to have LB and AC sharing their work with us.

adam said...

thanks for covering Mexican soccer, I think it would be great for everyone, Mexicans and Gringos alike to follow each other's leagues and clash more often, informed clashes, of course. thanks again. Mexicanbluefish

adam said...

thanks for covering Mexican soccer, I think it would be great for everyone, Mexicans and Gringos alike to follow each other's leagues and clash more often, informed clashes, of course. thanks again. Mexicanbluefish

Anonymous said...

thanks for that little story...but it reminds me of when my brother played proffesional baseball in Mexico and they missed the playoffs because they lost the "Coin Flip"