[ uno ]
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"Got a secret,
Can you keep it?
Swear this one you'll save."
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"I hope they don't cancel the game." Jürgen commented to Rodolfo as they walked with the rest of the players into the locker room. Jürgen and Lalo Herrera had been two of the most recent call ups and had only played two matches with the national team. Both had been on American soil. Sure there were thousands of Mexicans in the United States, but playing in the Estadio Azteca had been Jürgen's dream ever since he could remember. All of them were present in the locker room, all but one. It had been over a half hour since they had seen him.
When they arrived on the team bus a while earlier, it had started pouring outside. The clouds had darkened the sky over the Azteca in the capital city of Mexico, as if knowing of the ominous things that would be happening there. The national team would be going up against the United States' national team as a preparation game before they could go to the Gold Cup which would take place in the United States.
The players had finished getting ready to go out onto the field, and still there was no sign of their starting goal keeper. With fifteen minutes left before the game, El Piojo Herrera walked into the locker rooms. "Has anyone seen Memo?" He asked the twenty-two players. Half of them raised their heads to look at the team manager. They had all seen Memo on the team bus and half of them had even talked to him when they made their way towards the changing room. But at an undetermined moment, they didn't see him anymore. No one thought anything suspicious of it until the moment in which the team manager asked about the missing players.
They all shook their heads in response. Thinking about it for a moment, he looked to Alfredo Talavera. "I guess you're starting, Tala. But I'm still getting someone to search for Memo." Miguel Herrera instructed the players to stay put until he had more news about their team mate and left them there to wonder what had happened.
.
On the bus, on the way to Estadio Azteca, the bus was something of a party. In order to set the mood for their upcoming game, Paul was playing banda music loudly on his cellphone. Some of the players sang along to the songs which talked about getting drunk, going to parties, and sleeping with easy-going women. Paul was the loudest of them, singing, "Ando bien pedo, bien loco, cantandole al recuerdo mis penas!"
"You and your naco ass music, turn it down." Miguel complained, who was sitting next to the footballer from Sinaloa.
Paul snorted at his friend's comment. "Ay el fresa is complaining again. Pinche marica. Let me listen to my music. I don't even know why we're friends." The two were from completely different worlds. Paul had been raised in an impoverished village in Sinaloa, while Miguel had always gotten everything he wanted. He was from a privileged family in Veracruz. His grandfather Youssef Layun had moved to Mexico from Lebanon and was able to make a nice living for himself. His maternal grandfather had moved to Mexico from Spain, making Miguel only half-Mexican, like some of his other team mates.
"Play some mariachi music!" Javier yelled from one side of the bus over the roaring drums and loud cymbals of the banda.
