The Pachuca soccer team is known as The Tuzos and we found out today that the name means rats. To be specific mine rats that the early miners found as they were mining silver near the city.
They love history here and being a history nut myself. I'm eating this stuff up.
The original Pachuca Tuzos were made up of only English and German men. The men that brought silver mining to this city.
The year was 1901 There's a picture in the stadium from that first soccer match in 1901 that the club played against the local Mexicans. There's no word on who won that initial match, but soon afterward the locals were represented on the team.
We met up with about a dozen Dynamo fans that are staying at the nearby Holiday Inn. All told, there will probably be between 20 and 30 Dynamo fans in the stadium tonight. Some of them attended the DC United vs. Chivas Guadalahara match on Tuesday night, so they are getting their fill of soccer in Mexico. A couple of guys we talked to drove 10 hours to Monterrey and then took a 12-hour bus ride to Pachuca.
Now that's dedication to the team.
I don't know the exact payroll of this Pachuca team, which is rated No. 1 in Mexico, but it's said to be between $25 and $30 million dollars. The Dynamo's payroll in contrast is only about $2 million. There are players on this Pachuca team that make more than the entire Dynamo team combined!!!
We went to a McDonald's today just to get a taste of home. I had a hamburgesa with queso.
The Cokes didn't have any ice in them. But the fries were outstanding.
It's odd to me, but the restaurants here don't serve complimentary chips and salsa like they do back in Houston. My beef enchiladas I ordered for dinner last night consisted of cheese enchiladas with a thin flank steak on top. But no free chips and salsa.
I was bummed!
Yesterday during my daily workout in the fitness center of our hotel, I couldn't feel the affects of the high, mountain air, but today I did. Being the curious sort, I extended my treadmill, cycling and weightlifting workout for a longer period and I could definitely feel a little bit of what the Dynamo players have been telling us about.
The only time Ernesto and I have really felt it is walking up and down several flights or stairs in the stadium getting our stories completed.
The cell phone service is spotty at best here and the internet service leaves much to be desired, but all in all everything runs smoothly in this mountain city of approximately 1 million people.
Just like Mexico City, the houses here are all about concrete and tile.
As for the Dynamo players, they seemed very well focused on the task at hand. They know they'll be playing for all of American soccer here tonight and they welcome that role. Just to give you an idea of how serious they are; goalkeeper Pat Onstad, who is not even expected to start tonight, was out practicing with his coach at 8:30 a.m. on a bare, hardscrabble field just outside of the team hotel. Dynamo coach Dominic Kinnear says if his guys play tonight the way they practiced yesterday the team will have a great outcome.
That's it for now, but I'll be filing text and video stories here on KHOU.com throughout the evening including pre game and post game reports.