England had hoped to keep their location secret after hundreds of Mexico supporters surrounded the base of last-32 opponents Ecuador’s base, using car horns, roaring motorcycle engines and loud hailers to create a disturbance.<\/p>\n
It was all to no avail as home fans descended on England’s hotel, where there has been a huge security presence, after their arrival.<\/p>\n
Head coach Thomas Tuchel was visibly relishing the atmosphere and the occasion when he spoke at the Azteca, saying: “We saw the excitement and the emotions of the people when we arrived. They were emotional but also very, very respectful.<\/p>\n
“We felt the energy of the place right away, the people on the streets. You can feel the excitement. This is a next-level setting.<\/p>\n
“I felt straight away this would be a proper World Cup game. We are in an iconic place and an iconic stadium. It is just the biggest stage and we feel it.”<\/p>\n
He added: “Mexico will give us a taste of the intensity, the heat and we must find solutions to that.<\/p>\n
“It will be emotional and full of support for the home team. We are at a stadium that can create an atmosphere to the advantage of the home team and create momentum and belief, but we have very experienced players.”<\/p>\n
England’s last visit to the Azteca acquired permanent notoriety when Diego Maradona’s Hand Of God goal gave Argentina the lead in the World Cup quarter-final, adding a breathtaking second with a slalom run and finish to seal their 2-1 win.<\/p>\n
And back in 1970, Mexico was where England, under Sir Alf Ramsey, embarked on an ill-fated campaign to retain the World Cup won at Wembley four years previously.<\/p>\n
England’s decision to ship their own food to Mexico, some of which was impounded – although the fish fingers made it through – offended the locals, who pride themselves on their hospitality.<\/p>\n
Mexican supporters took against England and the austere Ramsey, expressing their displeasure by openly favouring England’s opponents in every game.<\/p>\n
And before the World Cup even started, there was the infamous incident involving England’s inspirational captain Bobby Moore, who was accused of stealing a bracelet from a shop at their hotel in Bogota, Colombia.<\/p>\n
There were fears Moore could miss the start of the tournament, but he was eventually released an innocent man, with even then Prime Minister Harold Wilson coming to his aid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England had hoped to keep their location secret after hundreds of Mexico supporters surrounded the base of last-32…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-780758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}