"Mexico is football," said Jacqueline Damian, standing outside Los Angeles Stadium before a Switzerland versus Bosnia and Herzegovina game — a match Mexico had nothing to do with. She wasn't wrong. Walk into any World Cup fixture in LA and you'll find a sea of green and red. The home team doesn't matter.
With the 2026 World Cup co-hosted by the U.S., Mexico and Canada, Mexico's own games are being played on home soil. That hasn't stopped their supporters from flooding Los Angeles Stadium for every fixture on the schedule. At the U.S. team's opening match, Mexico shirts were neck-and-neck with Team USA colours inside a 70,000-seat stadium. Not a handful. Neck-and-neck.
A city that was always home
There's a reason for that. Los Angeles County is home to nearly 5 million Latinos — the largest such concentration in the United States. California itself was Mexican territory until the 1846-48 war, a history written into every city name from Los Angeles to San Diego. Generations of Mexican-born immigrants and U.S.-born descendants didn't just settle here. They built the place.
"Our culture runs deep and we're not afraid to come out and show it," said Alejandra Navarro, a 29-year-old nurse whose parents hail from Michoacán.
That depth isn't abstract. Damian's father Jose Roman, 48, grew up playing football on the dirt streets of Mexico. That's the generation that passed the obsession down. It didn't get diluted crossing a border — it got louder.
Boyle Heights and the Korean connection
In Boyle Heights, the historically Latino neighbourhood east of downtown LA, Mexico fans threw a watch party for their group-stage match against South Korea. The crowd was mixed — Mexican fans mingling with Korean Americans, waving small Korean flags as a thank-you for 2018, when South Korea beat Germany and sent Mexico through.
"We love the Koreans!" shouted Andrew Gomez, 20, in a green and red Mexican wrestler's mask. It was chaotic and joyful in exactly the way a watch party should be.
Kids in traditional Mexican dress. Bacon-wrapped street dogs smoking outside the stadium. Spanish-speaking vendors selling flags, hats and Mexican beer to anyone walking in — regardless of what game was about to kick off.
"It doesn't matter what team is playing here, there are always Mexican fans," Damian said. Five million people in one county tend to have that effect.
