US-Mexico Soccer Rivalry Focus of New Documentary Tom Marshall - MLSsoccer.com
go to original May 31, 2012

GUADALAJARA – Could the rivalry that simmers between the United States and Mexcio grow to become one of the biggest in world soccer?

Pablo Miralles, director, writer and producer of new documentary Gringos at the Gate, thinks it has all the ingredients to be just that and his film explains why that claim isn’t just promotional hyperbole.

“The idea was to highlight a world rivalry that not a lot of people know about, but is by far the most interesting in my opinion,” Miralles told MLSsoccer.com from Los Angeles on Monday.

Miralles, of Dutch and Argentine descent, says the initial idea for the documentary began in a pub in Germany during the 2006 World Cup. It was there that a drunken Englishman told Miralles wholeheartedly that he was fearful of the day the United States became a world soccer power.

Upon his return to the US, Miralles, an LA Galaxy season-ticket holder, related the story to a Mexican-American friend, who replied: “That is the fear of all Mexicans.”

Having become accustomed to witnessing the intensity of Mexican national team games in Southern California while growing up, but also having tracked the rise of the US national team, something clicked for Miralles. He decided to pour his own money into making the first feature-length documentary on why other fans, especially Mexicans, are fearful of a strong US team as well as the complex dynamics at play when the US and Mexico clash on the soccer pitch.

The resulting film, Gringos at the Gate, traces the origins of the US-Mexico soccer rivalry, from the very different beginnings of the game in both Mexico and the United States to last year’s Gold Cup final, won 4-2 by El Tri in front of an overwhelmingly pro-Mexico crowd at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

The filming takes in the cold, wet World Cup qualifier in 2009 in Columbus, as well as the return game later that year under the intense mid-afternoon sun in Mexico City's Estadio Azteca. It also focuses on the effect the 1994 World Cup had in the US and the 2002 World Cup victory by the Stars and Stripes against Mexico.

To its credit, Gringos at the Gate paints the picture from both sides of the border.

Read the full story at MLSsoccer.com

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!