We feel we have been somewhat remiss in our coverage of America’s “other” national team. Yes, we know there are a host of soccer fans out there who are angered by the fact that the USA seemingly cannot enjoy home advantage at stadia whenever it plays Mexico but it seems only fair that with some 30% of the population speaking Spanish and coming from a Latino background (such as, say, Puerto Rico, my wife reminds me) that we pay attention to a team a lot of you care about too. Even if we’re super-lame and are only getting to it in the half-hour before kick-off.

[We have a good reason for this, actually. Two, really. The first is, the boss is coming in to town tonight, so half of us is out at the airport, schlepping him back here, and we’re making dinner. We also had to wash the sheets in the spare bedroom. The second is that half of your reporting cadre has Crohn’s disease, and the heat and humidity are making him miserable and petulant. He cannot have sausages, and this is disappointing.]

Now, Mexico can lock up its fifth straight second-round berth with a win over Angola tonight. (Mexico was booted out of the 1990 Cup for that silly business with over-age players in the 1988 Olympic Games; we never tire of the detail that the players busted were twins… whose papers had different ages on them.) Missing is Jared Borgetti, who tore a hamstring but was rather ineffective in the first game anyway after spending his season flunking out at Bolton. Instead, Francisco Fonseca and Omar Bravo are likely to pair up top, which was a profitable combo in their first game against Iran.

By all measures, this should be a fairly easy game for the Tricolores. Angola played well against the one team you’d expect them to, former colonists Portugal, but this is a team that has little left in the tank. Both teams are used to the heat and humidity so no advantage there. In fact, the only thing missing for Mexico will by manager Ricardo La Volpe’s cigarettes, which FIFA kindly asked him to refrain from puffing on anxiously while on the bench. We’ll see if he does.

By the way, a word about that whole home-field advantage thing for the USA, since we brought it up. Did you know that since 1998, USA soccer attendance has taken a nose-dive? Yep. We used to see 50, 60,000 people at games, and now the ceiling seems to be 20-30K. In fact, our pal Grahame Jones noted in the L.A. Times that the U.S. attracted a total of just 80,522 fans to its three World Cup send-off games. Sounds like a lot, huh? Well, Australia's send-off game, against Greece at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, drew a crowd of 95,103.

While we once agreed with the notion that the USA should schedule its games outside the reach of Mexico’s fans (and U.S. Soccer will argue that it has sacrificed crowds to do precisely that, an argument which we don’t entirely buy), it seems clear that the Anglo fans who raised the ruckus in the first place, aren’t showing up. We think there are several reasons for this, but that’s another column/post.

Last but not least, Univision is taking ESPN’s scalp on this tournament — they’re averaging 11% higher ratings than ESPN2, which had its highest rating of the year with the USA-Czech Republic game. How much of that is Anglo crossover? Wish we knew. We also are curious how many of you Anglos will watch America’s “other” team tonight. After all, your neighbours most likely are.