My name is Alvaro Vaquero and I’m a fan of the national Mexican futbol team. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Like many Mexican national team fans I was born into this fandom and was raised watching world cup qualifiers, gold cup games, and world cup games. My dad and I make it to all national team games held in New Jersey since that’s the closest they ever get to playing in New York.
The pride of Mexico soccer fans can’t be explained with words
For this episode of Fan Stories, we are focusing on Mexico soccer and their dedicated fan base that helps make soccer the biggest sport in the world. Here we showcase one of their superfans, and the following excerpt shows his passion for the Mexico national team.
This week I’ll be attending my first ever Copa America match to watch Mexico play Venezuela. Since this tournament is usually played in South America I had to jump at the opportunity to attend a game. This will also be the first time I attend a game with Pancho Villa’s Army, the official supporters group of the Mexican National Team in the states. Villa’s Army is a family friendly organization made up by fans that share a passion for Mexican national team futbol. They have battalions all across the states and a new one pops up all the time.
I’ve been the captain of the New York City battalion for about 4 months and we’re definitely trying to grow within New York. We’re a relatively new battalion but I’ve already met some awesome people and Copa America has given us more and more buzz. Fans are starting to recognize us when we get together at bars/restaurants for our watch parties. If you want to keep up with the NYC battalion, you can follow us on social media on twitter @PVANYC, instagram @PVANYC, and facebook PVA New York City Battatlion. If you’re in New York and there’s a Mexico game on you can be sure we’ll be somewhere in the city cheering. Anyone is welcome to join us all you have to do is be ready to lose your voice and have a great time.
