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'Yes, we can!' Tie with U.S. is historic for tiny Guatemala town
MAZATENANGO, Guatemala (AP) -- When Guatemalan standout Carlos Ruiz scored in the game's final minutes to give Guatemala a 1-1 tie with the U.S. national team Sunday afternoon, Daniel Lopez knew just what to do. The 8-year-old's parents couldn't afford tickets to the second-round 2002 World Cup qualifier here, but his house shook from the noise of the stadium across the street. He went outside and reenacted the scene again and again. "It went like this," Lopez said as he kicked a tiny green soccer ball no bigger than a cantaloupe through two imaginary goal posts and into the curb. "The Gringos came this way and our No. 9 just scored in front of them." The house where Lopez lives looks pretty much like most of the structures here in this sugar-growing town of about 80,000 people, where the heat ensures that nobody goes about any task too fast. The house is painted three different pastel colors, has a roof that doesn't cover all the rooms below and walls that look like they could blow over at any minute. "I suppose it is nice a big country like the United States had a team so close to where I live," he said. Sunday was the first time in history Guatemala's national squad has played a non-exhibition game outside of the sprawling confines of Guatemala City. For U.S. soccer coach Bruce Arena the decision to hold Sunday's game in this sweltering southern town in the shadow of the towering, if dormant, Santa Maria volcano worked to Guatemala's advantage. "The heat was very important today," he said after the game. "It was part of the gamesmanship that goes into these kinds of games." But it was little short of a miracle for the 9,000 fans who packed the tight, light-blue confines of Carlos Salazar Jr. stadium, where boys hawking fried plantains outnumber seats with a back, and for the thousands more who paced nearby streets simply to listen to the crowd noise. "That was the biggest goal in history for the most important game in history," said 39-year-old Gladis Hidea Brgus, a local street vendor, who added she sold more sodas and bags of potato chips Sunday than she "does in a year." Ruiz "scored it for us, for our town and for our country." At the game, the crowd, which showed up to chant "yes, we can!" some three hours before the contest started, sweated along with the white-and-blue jerseyed Guatemalan players on the field. At the game's conclusion the chant was modified to "yes we could!" "Everyone behaved really well," said Javier Roca, 19, a student who made the 100 miles (160 km) trip south from Guatemala City to see the game. "The U.S. thought people would at least throw things and start fights, but none of that happened." But Mazatenango's moment in the sun ended as quickly as it had come, when soccer's powers-that-be announced the game's location two weeks ago. As afternoon became early evening Sunday, the teams' buses left for the capital, followed by the press, 500-plus police officers and soldiers who had been on hand for game security and a majority of the fans who actually had the chance to see the game firsthand. "The teams, press and even Pepsi are leaving us," said Jose Luis Miranda, the owner of a small convenience story across the street from the stadium, as he watched an army of workers load blue and red Pepsi banners, billboards, table and chairs imported for the game onto a row of moving trucks. "But all of us here can now be happy knowing we got to see little Guatemala tie the Americans."
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