Over two weeks, the author covered more than 1,250 miles and visited four cities in a tour of the temples of Mexico's national passion

	Toluca's fans cheer their idols at La Bombonera. Simon Bruty/SI
	RELATED • GALLERY: The great Mexican soccer adventure

By Grant Wahl

Reprinted from SI Latino

Bo-FO! Bo-FO! Bo-FO! The familiar chant rings through the packed concrete walkways of the Estadio Jalisco like a church hymn. Bo-FO! Bo-FO! Bo-FO! It's half an hour before kickoff of the Clásico Tapatío, the bitter Guadalajara rivalry between Chivas and Atlas, and Chivas fans are frothing in anticipation. Only this time the object of their affection isn't their beloved forward Adolfo (El Bofo) Bautista. In fact, it's someone else entirely.

It's me.

I'm wearing a red-and-white striped Chivas jersey and a red bandanna that resembles the distinctive headband worn by El Bofo himself. So I decide to have some fun. First I raise both arms and bow to my admirers. Then, knowing that my noggin is shaved just like El Bofo's was last season, I theatrically remove my bandana and model for the masses.

The crowd erupts. Bo-FO! Bo-FO! Bo-FO! Now they're mine. By the end of the night, as we celebrate a rousing 2-0 Chivas victory in front of 65,000 fans, I'm jumping up and down with my arms around the shoulders of two guys I've never met before. Two guys who've welcomed The Gringo Bofo like any other member of Chivas's famed Rebaño Sagrado (The Sacred Flock).

And so it goes, just another day in my excellent Mexican soccer adventure.

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The idea was simple enough: In the tradition of the film Y Tu Mamá También, in which the actors Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal embark on a road-trip of discovery across Mexico, I would do the same thing with Mexican soccer stadiums. In 10 years as the soccer writer for Sports Illustrated, I'd had plenty of fantastic experiences: traveling with the notorious fans of Boca Juniors in Argentina; interviewing David Beckham, Ronaldinho and Ronaldo; and surviving a deadly riot between Celtic and Rangers supporters in Scotland. But while I had spent plenty of time covering the Mexican national team, I knew embarrassingly little about the Mexican league.

Clearly it was time to rectify that. And so, three days after finishing my month-long coverage of the NCAA basketball tournament, I enlisted a fellow road-trip expert -- my college roommate, Jon-Claud Nix -- who joined me and photographer Simon Bruty in a crappy rented blue Nissan Sentra on our own journey of soccer discovery. Over two weeks in April we'd see four games, drive 905.8 kilometers and hit the three largest cities in Mexico. We'd hurl creative insults in the rain with the loyal supporters of Monterrey, learn how to taunt Atlas fans from a Chivas legend and imagine that we were Diego Maradona scoring against England -- while standing on the same Estadio Azteca grass where he performed his eternal feats of magic.