Across the border, past the Costco and the Marriott and the Tijuana Country Club, down an alley and before the mall entrance, past the greyhounds being led to the starting line for the sixth race, is one of those experiences you don’t know you’re missing.

It is happy, friendly chaos. It is homemade tacos pulled from a steamer at the only tailgate in Mexico. It is the dichotomy of an unfinished stadium that is both magnificent and hilariously hazardous in a country with dubious building codes. It is a drum beat that doesn’t stop and a haze of cigarette smoke in an open-air bar where the soccer being played below is a mere backdrop for the hands of blackjack being dealt at crowded tables.

For far less than you could ever expect to take in a sporting event, far closer than you might think and more fun than you can imagine.

The people, the smiles, the colors, the noises. It’s like being drunk without having a single drink – though you can get a 32-ounce beer for $4 here.


This is Xolos soccer, the last professional football around.

And this team wants to fill a void.

“We want to cater to them,” said Ivan Orozco, the Xolos’ U.S. media coordinator, speaking about disenfranchised Chargers fans. “… The philosophy of the ownership is it would like Xolos to be the regional team – of the whole southwest United States. There is nothing around here that has this type of soccer.”

There is nothing around here that has this type of anything surrounding a sporting event.


Oh, yes, this type of soccer is something brilliant. Tijuana plays in a league that is widely considered to be among the top-10 soccer leagues in the world, which is perhaps a greater compliment than it sounds. There are dozens of professional soccer leagues around the world, in countries where the devotion makes the United States’ NFL obsession seem like a cute grade-school crush.

It’s a smooth and fast soccer they play in Liga MX, Mexico’s first division, which the Xolos joined in 2011 and won in 2012 and currently lead. (They host third-place Pachuca at 7 p.m. Friday.)

Without getting too deep into the mechanics and with no interest in denigrating the American version of the game, the passing here is done as if the ball were on a string or drawn to feet by a magnet. It is soccer played in space, the field seemingly bigger.

But, what makes it wondrous is that this soccer is also about more than the game. You don’t need to eschew the word “zero” for “nil” or know the difference between a “back heel” and a “back pass” to have the best time you may ever have at a sporting event.


There is no danger in over-hyping this. It is absolutely bananas from the moment you enter the parking lot and smell the food and hear the bands and see people everywhere smiling and clearly ready for a Friday night fiesta.

At least half the license plates are from California. The reason is not simply that some 30 or 40 percent of the Xolos’ season ticket base is from the U.S. Reality is, what is happening in the parking lot is from the U.S.

No other Liga MX team has tailgating. In fact, while Xolos is very much a team of Mexico and is credited with helping create a new image for Tijuana, the pregame ritual is among the things opposing fans use to denigrate Xolos as “Americanized.” There is, too, the English-language social media accounts the team manages along with its Spanish accounts.

The team doesn’t seem bothered at all by the criticism, by the way.


“We’re a team that belongs to both sides of the border,” said Roberto Conejo, the team’s deputy general manager.

Indeed, on more than one car were flags of both the United States and Mexico.

And under a black and red San Diego State canopy, a man from from Tijuana prepared a taco for a stranger while his son explained why he makes the drive from San Diego’s South Bay to attend Xolos games.

“It is soccer in our backyard,” Guillermo Solorio said. “We cross over and have tacos, beer and a good team.”


When you are speaking in the parking lot of Estadio Caliente, you must lean in close and raise your voice. Maybe this gringo also needed a few things repeated due to the language barrier, but the biggest communication hindrance is the bands roaming between the vehicles and radios blaring Mexican and English music. It’s bedlam, at its cozy best.

Jorge Lopez leaves his Chula Vista home around 3 or 4 to join friends for a 7 p.m. Xolos game. It takes him 30 minutes, door to tailgate.

(I parked in a lot just north of the border for $13 and took a 10-minute taxi ride to the stadium for another $15.)

Lopez was a Chivas fan, as many Mexicans in the region were, if they were not loyal to Americas, before the Xolos moved up to Liga MX.


“Now we have a team,” Lopez said.

Still, he is excited by the possibility of an MLS franchise in San Diego.

“That would be cool for the future of my kids to have a local team,” he said. “I don’t know which I would go to. I would go to both, maybe. I’ll go to Xolos. And my kids would go to MLS. We will root against each other, probably.”

Then he laughed.


There is a lot of that here. Enjoyment.

Inside the stadium – which has been built up from essentially a hole in the ground to 24,000 capacity and is in a perpetual state of upgrade and expansion – enjoyment gives way to pandemonium.

Not every seat was filled this past Friday for the Xolos’ 2-0 victory over Monterrey, but it might have been a lot closer if more people were actually sitting in their seats. Two or three deep around the lower bowl, fans stood throughout the game. People. Along with a few dogs.

And behind one goal is a full section of fans – known as La Masakr3 (“the massacre”) – that is worth the price of admission. (For the cheapest ticket, that price is a paltry $20 or so, depending on the exchange rate; a season pass for seats in the lower bowl near midfield can be had for just under $300.)


For a goal, the entire place loses its collective mind in a way that makes 20,000 sound like 50,000. And the knowledgeable crowd cheers loudly for various nuances.

But the movement behind the southern goal never stops. Nor the noise.

Giant red, white and black checkered flags wave constantly, passed from person to person, presumably when arms get tired. Chants and songs are shouted. Various portions of La Masakr3 jumps rhythmically throughout. A half-dozen drums are constantly keeping time to it all.

Think what “The Show” used to be and remains for portions of Aztecs basketball games – except for 45 minutes without end. Then after a break for halftime, for another unceasing 45 minutes.


Oh, and in a corner of the upper deck on the opposite end of the stadium, a smaller group of opposing fans are also banging a drum and jumping and chanting. The entire time.

Above the lower bowl is a virtual high-rise second level that houses more than 200 suites of various sizes, a press box, a restaurant and a bar that overlook the field

The suites are slightly less appointed but every bit as modern and comfortable as those at Qualcomm Stadium. For less than $100,000 – about the cost of leasing a suite for one season at a Chargers game – you can have one for 25 years at Xolos games.

For much less than that – and certainly less than a comparable setting in the U.S. – you can watch the game from the restaurant or bar on either side of the press box.


And, really, there is no comparable setting north of the border.

At the far end of the bar, after walking through the cigarette smoke and dodging a polite line of children leading their parents, you will find the blackjack tables. Big screen televisions show the game, which is also visible in real life through the opening several feet away.

Truth be told, there are places in the stadium that are almost unfathomably open to the public. Estadio Caliente is in a perpetual state of upgrade, and they just keep playing games. So at one end of the bowl, a walkway is uneven dirt and pocked cement.

But at no time, for no reason does any of it feel dangerous.


Never throughout the night did being in the stadium seem claustrophobic or threatening or uncomfortable. All of those sensations can be byproducts of attending a large sporting event.

Maybe it’s the music. Maybe it’s the smiles and laughter.

Whatever, it’s the good time most San Diego sports fans didn’t know they could have.


kevin.acee@sduniontribune.com