If you can swing an invitation, there’ll be great food and copious booze in every city where the Mexican soccer team plays a match, as part of a cultural promotional campaign called “Taste of Mexico”. So it’s a pity that the team will be steamrolled by Bafana Bafana in the very first match of the tournament, and will be in no shape to make it past the first round.

Watch: Mexicans enjoy their last Mariachi before the Friday massacre

But you have to give them points for their bittereinder-ness. In a last-ditch attempt at gaining some supernatural support, the Mexicans have imported a giant replica of El Ángel de la Independencia (The Angel of Independence), a statue in downtown Mexico City. It is the most potent totem the country possesses, apparently, and will be unveiled where it now stands in Melrose Arch on Wednesday. We predict it will become a shrine where Mexican fans and Safricans alike will lay wreaths and light candles in memory of the team after they get slaughtered on Friday.

Photo: PJ Powers has provided the Mexicans with a foretaste of the horror they will experience on Friday.

They deserve that kind of pity, not only for their pluckiness in the face of certain doom, but for their exaggerated attempts at making friends, perhaps in the equally doomed hope that Bafana will go easy on them. On Monday the Mexicans rolled out PJ Powers to sing her anthem Jabulani, and former Bafana captain Shaun Bartlett to preview the match (it’ll be tough going for Mexico, he predicted, before getting lost in polite platitudes). The two of them served as back-up acts to Mexican ambassador Luis Cabrera, who stressed how nice Mexico is, how nice South Africa is, how wonderful life is in general, and then fleetingly referred to hopes that Mexico may eke out a draw in Friday’s decidedly uneven competition.

Which, we reckon, was about as much as you could expect from any man, even one with extensive training and experience in diplomacy.

The Bafana players aren’t half bad at diplomacy either. In interviews on Monday, fresh from humiliating Denmark, players studiously refrained from using words such as “murder”, “annihilate” or even “thrash” in reference to the upcoming match. Remember that names and nicknames such as Katlego “Killer” Mphela, though entirely accurate, do not constitute specific threats.

By Phillip de Wet

(Disclaimer: De Wet’s opinions are his own, and not necessarily shared by this publication or its defamation lawyers. We will also not accept claims for refunds on any money you bet on a Bafana win, or damages for emotional pain and suffering should things not go as predicted here. Further small print may also apply, if we think of any.)

Main photo: Luis Cabrera, Mexican Ambassaador to South Africa