The Mexican national team’s friendly against Ireland meant nothing for standings and everything for fans

JERSEY CITY, N.J. — It’s 10:45 in the morning, and Alma Enriquez has been camped out behind metal barriers in the driveway of the Westin Hotel since 5. She was here last night, too, waiting with over 70 other fans for the Mexican national soccer team to show up. When the players finally arrived at 2 a.m., Javier “Chicharito” Hernández, the team’s biggest star, signed Alma’s jersey. She proudly points to the scribbles on her chest.

Mexico will play several World Cup Qualifying games later this summer, but this Thursday matchup against Ireland is just a friendly. El Tri plays most of its nonessential games in the U.S., which fans attend in huge numbers. American soccer makes money off these matches; since the Mexican team is promoted in the U.S. by Soccer United Marketing, the marketing arm of MLS.

Tonight’s game doesn’t matter when it comes to standings. But it matters a lot to the fans waiting outside the hotel, like Alma (who doesn’t have tickets), and to the tens of thousands of others who will pour into MetLife Stadium this evening. They’ll wear Mexican jerseys and hats, and some will drape flags over their shoulders as capes. They’ll do the wave and sing along to the Mexican national anthem. They’ll chant “ole, ole, ole, ole,” and outnumber Irish fans by what will seem like a million to one. The parking lot will be strewn with empty bottles of Modelo and Bud Lite and Patron. Mexico will win 3-1, and the stadium will vibrate with the energy of a Super Bowl.

The game will be thrilling. Waiting outside the hotel is not.

By noon, the crowd’s grown to 25. A valet comes outside and says the team won’t leave for MetLife until 4:30. Myra Castro and her brother Ishmael sigh. Ishmael is a freshman in high school, Myra’s a senior. They’re both playing hooky, but Myra’s skipping more than school: her prom is tonight.

“My friends were a little bit mad, but they got over it,” she says. “These games are pretty fun. They’re really fun. Everybody is from the same country as you. It feels like home, you know? It feels good.”

Flor Benavidez, who drove from New Haven with her sister and cousins early this morning, stands at the barrier next to Alma. It turns out that she’s also missing her prom to be here. Neither she nor Myra regret trading a dress for a Chicharito jersey.

It’s Chicharito’s 29th birthday today, which he’s spending in a suite several floors above the Westin’s Fire & Oak Grill, where Manny Benitas works as a line cook. This morning, Manny and Andres Hidalgo, a Colombian server at the restaurant (who’s a big fan of Mexico’s Colombian coach Juan Carlos Osorio) brought Chicharito a brownie with a candle in it.

“I was trying to take a picture, but my phone wasn’t working at the time,” Andres says as he wraps silverware in crisp white napkins. “Manny wanted me to record him giving Chicharito the brownie, and then I looked, and I was recording myself. It was so funny. After, Manny was like, ‘Show me the video!’ So I show him, and it was my face.”

Andres mimes holding the phone incorrectly as he tells the story. Manny shakes his head and smiles as he says something in Spanish.

“He says he was so angry,” Andres translates. He and Manny laugh.

It’s hot outside. The clouds bring some relief at 2:45, go away at 3, then cover the sun again at 4. 4:30 comes and goes — no sign of the team. Myra and Ishmael leave. By 5:15, sixty fans have gathered. They’re quiet; after so many hours, you run out of things to say. Flor sits on the curb scrolling through Instagram. She’s doodled soccer balls on the skin of her knee exposed by her ripped jeans.

The thing about waiting is that the next moment can always be the one when you suddenly won’t be waiting anymore. At 6, that moment seems to arrive; Alma’s gotten word (it’s unclear how) that the team is coming out a side entrance. She springs to her feet, and the bright green crowd follows her around the corner. Commuters wearing the muted blues and grays of business stop to let these fans run by on the New Jersey sidewalk.

A bus — the same one the team arrived on last night — pulls up and idles by the side door. Fans ready their markers, but then the bus drives away, and everyone sprints back to the front of the hotel. Then the bus circles back around to the side. Alma laughs and shakes her head as she leads the crowd around the corner again. She might not be going to the game, but she’s determined to get closer to the team than any of the fans who are.

A woman named Lauren, who’s the events manager at the Westin, and three security guards move the barriers to the side entrance. One hundred fans strain behind them, many holding balloons and signs that say “Feliz Compleanos, Chicharito!” Some wear sombreros. It’s 6:25. They wait.

“It’s cool that these fans care so much,” Lauren says. “No one really cares when the U.S. team goes anywhere. They’re just like, ‘Oh, hey.’”

A boy with a red Power Ranger action figure plays with his toy on the back of a particularly patient dog. A mother tells her son to stop hitting her other son. It’s 6:40. Flor leans out over one of the barriers as Alma presses herself up against another.

And then it is the moment, and the crowd erupts in a glorious release of tension — “CHICHARITO!!” — as the players come out of the hotel. Chicharito waves but doesn’t stop. The screams die down as he boards the bus, then resume when he reemerges to sign a few jerseys and accept one balloon. For the two minutes he’s outside, the fans construct a wall of noise.

Alma reaches over the barrier toward Chicharito. He goes over and stands in front of her for a moment. Then he climbs back onto the bus and the door hisses closed behind him. The fans stop yelling. The team drives away.

Flor and her sister look despondent — they didn’t get Chicharito’s autograph. Alma sprints by in a pink tank top, waving her signed jersey over her head.

“He gave me tickets!” Alma yells, stopping to jump up and down. “I won two tickets!”

She flashes them briefly, then runs off. She has to get herself to the stadium, where she’ll cheer for the team that means everything in a game that means nothing at all.