Sombreros, skulls as Raiders beat Texans in Mexico 27-20

I’m very honoured to have played in such a historic place’

Mexicans loudly celebrated the NFL’s long-awaited return to their country on Monday, wearing sombreros, donning skull masks and blaring a controversial chant as the Raiders      defeated the Houston Texans 27-20.
Mexico City’s cathedral of football, the Azteca Stadium, was a sea of silver and black in support of the Raiders, officially the home team.
The game avoided major insults against US President-elect Donald Trump, who has made several controversial remarks about Mexicans, though the kickers were targets of a chant some consider homophonic.
Raiders quarterback Derek Carr threw three touchdown passes and Oakland remained atop the AFC West division with a 8-2 record, while the Texans fell to 6-4 but stayed atop the AFC South.
Carr tossed a 35-yard touchdown pass to receiver Amari Cooper with less than five minutes remaining to break a 20-20 stalemate in a game in which the thin air affected the players at an altitude of 2,250 metres (7,380 feet).
“I’m very honoured to have played in such a historic place,” said Carr, a soccer fan who noted that it was here that Diego Maradona scored his infamous “hand of God” goal against England at the 1986 World
Cup.
The game was a long-time coming in a nation where the NFL counts 25mn followers, the most outside the United States. The Raiders are the fifth-most popular team in Mexico, well ahead of the Texans.
The NFL last played in Mexico City in 2005 while playing annually for the past nine years across the Atlantic Ocean in London.
Raiders fans came dressed with skull masks and face paint, as many fans in Oakland do, although sombreros fitted with face masks put a special Mexico touch on the event.
“We missed this,” said Hector Cervantes, a 56-year-old technology security firm owner wearing a black chain around his Raiders jersey.
Armando Oceguera, a 28-year-old Texans fan draped in a Mexican flag, said he was “a bit angry” that the NFL has prioritised London.
While it took the NFL a decade to return, Mexico got a primetime slot with the first Monday night game ever played outside the United States.
Depending on the success of Monday’s game, the league plans to have two more games in Mexico in 2017 and 2018, and possibly more in the future.
 
US anthem respected
The American pastime returned to Mexico two weeks after Trump, who has angered Mexicans by calling migrants from their country rapists and vowing to make their government pay for a massive border wall, won the US presidential election.
But few had politics in mind Monday, Raiders fans saving their boos for the Texans before a sellout crowd of 76,473.
“I don’t care about politics,” said Gonzalo Gonzalez, 43, who travelled from Los Angeles
for the game and had the words “Raider Nation” tattooed on his arms along with “Hecho
en Mexico” (Made in Mexico).
“I just care about the Raiders,” said the 43-year-old electrician whose family moved from Mexico to the United States when he was a baby, though he used an expletive against Trump under his silver and black sombrero.
When Mexican-American pop singer Becky G performed the US national anthem, the few whistles heard in the stadium were shut down by others loudly hushing “shhh.”
The crowd went wild when a giant US flag made of a series of panels turned to reveal the colours of Mexico and they sang their nation’s anthem in unison.

Infamous chant
But during kickoffs, punts and field goals, the crowd used a chanted uttered by Mexican football fans against rival goalkeepers.
FIFA has fined Mexico’s football federation for the chant, though many Mexicans deny that it targets gays.
But Samuel Hernandez, a 39-year-old Raiders fan who dressed as a pirate with an eyepatch, said he was disappointed that fans had “shouted vulgarities” as the NFL could frown upon it.
Alejandra Estrada, 29, who works in marketing for a soft drink firm, defended the tradition but worried that the NFL could “take the word literally” and think twice about returning to Mexico.
For his part, Raiders coach Jack del Rio said he “did not pick up on that” and found that “the crowd was outstanding.”