49ers lifted by Mexican fans’ zeal
MEXICO CITY — The San Francisco 49ers spent only about 30 hours in this country, arriving late Sunday night to find their hotel surrounded by a cheering mob of fans, leaving for the game Monday afternoon to the same frenzied scene, witnessing 49ers fans all along the traffic-choked streets to the game and arriving at one of the world’s most venerable stadiums to find it totally overtaken by 49ers fans.
“I love San Francisco,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said, “but if we couldn’t be there, I’d love to be here. This was one of the coolest events I’ve ever been a part of. It was one of my favorite games.”
This was, for all purposes except technically, a 49ers home game played 2,180 miles south of Santa Clara. And though they didn’t spend much time here, flying home late Monday night, the 49ers brought a souvenir back from Mexico: This was where they found their swagger.
In Estadio Azteca, where Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their gloved fists in protest at the 1968 Olympics, where the greatest futbol player in history — Pele — won a World Cup in 1970, the 49ers made a statement.
They are the team to beat in the NFC West.
Their 38-10 romp over Arizona gave them a three-game winning streak for the first time this season. At 6-4, they are back in first place in NFC West, holding the tiebreaker over the Seahawks. The defense was ferocious and shut out the Cardinals in the second half. The 49ers looked every bit the balanced, explosive team we’ve been expecting.
“We’re definitely ready to go on a run,” said George Kittle, who pranced into the postgame news conference in a 49ersthemed luchador mask. “We’re playing good football.”
It took a long journey to get to this point, literally, but to the delight of 78,427 almost entirely
pro-49ers fans, the 49ers appeared to have found their identity south of the border. For the first time since Christian McCaffrey arrived, the 49ers resembled what many folks had imagined their offense could be: a dazzling display of McCaffrey, Kittle, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk and Elijah Mitchell with Jimmy Garoppolo almost flawless in his execution.
Garoppolo was 20-for-29 and 228 yards, with four touchdowns and zero interceptions. He ended the game on the sideline while Brock Purdy executed the final plays. When the game was over, Garoppolo — like a soccer player at game’s end — turned around and applauded the fans.
“It was electric,” Garoppolo said of the atmosphere. “The fans were nuts. It seemed like a soccer game with the passion they brought.”
Beating Arizona has been one of Shanahan’s bugaboos. Aside from the 2019 season when everything seemed to go right, he was 1-7 against the Cardinals coming into Monday’s game. But his team looked superior in every way. Don’t forget the 49ers lost to Arizona and backup QB Colt McCoy last season.
The crowd at Azteca was far more knowledgeable than the much larger (by about 25,000) one that filled the stadium in 2005 before its remodeling. Back then, the fans were enthusiastic to be at an American football game but cheered mainly the punts and field goals. Plenty of fans had traveled here for Monday night’s game from the Bay Area and other parts of the United States, but the fans in Mexico were the ones who made the difference: They have learned the game and become passionate about it.
As some Mexican fans had predicted, they knew how to force McCoy to go to a silent count, even though the setup for the stadium was to honor the Cardinals as the “home” team. But the piped-in chants of “De-fense” and the scoreboard urging the crowd to make noise when the 49ers had the ball couldn’t persuade the fans to disrupt their beloved 49ers.
“They knew exactly what to do,” Shanahan said. “They cheered at the right time.”
The hardest thing for the 49ers about the game wasn’t the opponent but the altitude. Even with several days in Colorado Springs, they still felt it. They weren’t thrilled with the freezing environment in Colorado but it did the trick: Owner John York got the game ball for spending the money to acclimate his team.
And unlike when they emerged from a week away in West Virginia completely flat in a 28-14 loss in Atlanta on Oct. 16, the 49ers looked energized from the moment they stepped on the field at Azteca, dancing in warm-ups and soaking up the adoration of the crowd. During early warm-ups, the fans in the stands booed inactive Arizona QB Kyler Murray and cheered wildly for Garoppolo, Kittle and Nick Bosa when their faces appeared on the Jumbotron.
Perhaps the most amusing moment was in the middle of the Star-Spangled Banner when Garoppolo’s face was shown on the big screen and the screams drowned out the anthem.
Again, it was the fans who made a difference. The energy started when the team arrived at its hotel.
“That was awesome,” Bosa said. “We were extremely tired but that brought our spirits up.”
At game time, Fred Warner, Alfredo Gutierrez and Alex Barrett, all with Mexican roots, led the team onto the field carrying Mexican flags. Warner played in cleats that said, “Yo Soy Federico.” Arizona, as the home team, also entered with a Mexican flag — it didn’t matter. The Cardinals still were booed loudly.
“It was amazing to hear the cheers for us and the boos for them,” Bosa said.
Usually at Azteca, such passion is reserved for the national soccer team. But, on the night before El Tri was to play in the World Cup in Qatar, the fans poured similar adoration into the 49ers. When the Mexican national anthem was played before the game, the enormous building was filled with the proud singing of almost every fan.
Warner, whose grandfather was Mexican, came to the postgame podium wearing a green Mexican national-team jersey.
“This is something I’ll remember forever, running that flag out,” he said. “It felt like a playoff atmosphere.
“I get goosebumps just even thinking about it.”