The young New York City FC fan was proud to wear his jersey, but as he stood with his mom, dad, brother and two sisters, he stood out as the only member of the Gutierrez family supporting NYCFC.
“I’m just built different,” the young man said before elaborating on his fandom. “NYCFC is a good team, and I just like supporting them,” he said, even if Leagues Cup poses “a huge challenge since it’s not just MLS. It’s Liga MX, too.”
He and his dad Marian go back and forth, bantering about which players are better, which team is better and which league is better. Tuesday night’s NYCFC vs. Tigres matchup gave them more ammunition than usual, a direct confrontation between Ivan’s favorite team and a Mexican powerhouse.
The Gutierrez family isn’t unique. Many kids grow up in the U.S. and fall in love with their local MLS team, while their parents or other relatives maintain the strong ties to the Liga MX teams they grew up supporting before coming to the U.S.
It can result in tension at the home - though in most households that sporting strain only strengthens the bonds of family, togetherness and love.
Alejandra Islas stood outside Red Bull Arena with one son who supports Tigres, another, Axel who supports NYCFC since he is proud to be from New York, and another who sides with his dad’s hometown club Toluca
“Of course it bothers me. We’re super divided,” she said. None of her kids opted to join Islas in supporting Puebla, but rather than waste her breath trying to sell her already-decided family on La Franca, she has made peace with being the odd woman out.
“It’s exciting” to see these teams come together in Leagues Cup, she said. “The most beautiful thing soccer gives us is seeing kids continue to grow with the traditions we have in soccer - the love of the game. It helps us a lot.”
It’s a lovely sentiment. One slightly different from the one expressed by Lizeth Navarro.
“They suck!” she said of her Tigres-supporting cousins who were tailgating with her outside the stadium.
Navarro is NYCFC season ticket holder who was getting her food and drinks set up as her father Manuel, also dressed in a NYCFC shirt, took in the scene, joking and laughing as one of the cousins, Steven Santiago, said he’d simply do the same.
In the end, it was Navarro who emerged from the match with bragging rights as her beloved NYCFC earned a 2-1 win. But Navarro took it easy on Santiago and her other relatives, conceding that coming together for a Leagues Cup match was worth welcoming a rival - especially one related to her by blood.
“I think it’s awesome,” she said of the tournament. “It’s a nice opportunity for all the families to get together.”
Another pair of cousins, Ivan Bravo and George Hernandez, were wearing contrasting jerseys with Bravo in the NYCFC shirt and Hernandez repping Tigres. But Bravo said he felt an identity crisis, being that he supports NYCFC in MLS and Tigres in Liga MX.
“I obviously picked NYCFC. I’m from New York and it felt right. But I think it’s going to be kind of crazy. I think I’ll be a little neutral during the game,” Bravo said, noting that the contradicting feelings meant he and his brother, who also sided with NYCFC, wouldn’t trash talk Hernandez or other family members.
Even if everyone could agree to take things easy on each other for at least a few moments Tuesday night, that didn’t mean everyone had been resting easy in the build-up to the Round of 16 contest.
“I feel like the enemy is within my own home!” said Elman Rios, who sported a Tigres jersey and smiled thinking back on the “epic moments” he’s experienced watching Tigres through the years. Yet, while many fathers have coaxed their kids into loving the same club, Rios’ two sons were kitted out in NYCFC gear. “They were born in New York and I wasn’t, so they root for NYCFC,” he said.
Not only were his older son Manny and younger son Daniel born in New York, they also said they enjoy NYCFC’s branding and style of play. “It’s a great club,” Manny said. “They bring a lot of energy to each game.”
Manny Rios had a simple plan to match that energy in his stands if NYCFC was able to put a goal past Tigres goalkeeper Nahuel Guzman, his dad’s favorite player.
“I’m going to celebrate in his face,” he said.
As we saw at Red Bull Arena on Tuesday, he was hardly alone in taking that extra little bit of joy celebrating not only a goal of the team he was supporting but also reveling just a shred extra in his father’s frustration.
Whether it was Gutierrez standing alone as an NYCFC fan, Islas reveling in soccer helping to unite her family, Santiago hearing it about selecting Tigres from the older generation, or the Rios family going back and forth, there was something apparent about everyone who came to the stadium with their family.
No matter how many family members were wearing the opposite jersey, no one was truly outnumbered. Everyone knew their family had their back, no matter which jersey they had on Tuesday night.
