CONCACAF Champions League Round 1 - Away

The Concacaf Champions League is a tournament made out of the champions out of the North and Central American soccer leagues.
It's a little more complicated than that, but that's the easiest way to explain it and we're moving on....

So we've known since about October that LAFC had qualified to this tournament and we knew we had our first International match in the near future, but the question and stress was... who will LAFC have to face. These matches have an Home and Away games so where will we go? Mexico City to face America? or Costa Rica to face Saprissa???  We were all just hoping for a sick place. I was hoping we didn't have to face Alianza from El Salvador, because I have zero intentions to go back to my family's motherland ha.

This is going to sound like a flex but I promise it isn't, it's just how it played out. But we were on vacation with the CCL draw happened to know who was facing who. The draw was going to happen at about 6pm LA time, but I was scheduled to land at LAX at 8pm from a 9hr flight so I would be landing to some news. The draw happens and we get... Leon... BRUH WHAT? WHO? FUCK! Leon is from Mexico and they play in Guanajuato. Once I mentally relax from it not being in Costa Rica or Mexico City I realize how sick it will be to face Leon, currently one of Mexico's best teams and when else will I ever want to check out Guanajuato, maybe this CCL can help travel to places I wouldn't ever and get to support LAFC.

Well at this point we know it's vs Leon and it will be February 18th-20th, date not yet confirmed soooo what do we do the very next day? Yeaup, we buy a flight for Feb 18th to Feb 21st. No matter what, I am going wherever LAFC is going for their first ever match outside of the country. Twitter then informs me... that A TON of people did the same and leading up to this match I start to realize the 3252 was going to travel DEEP.

Guanajuato was incredible and that on it's own is a whole different topic but Food? amazing. People? amazing. City? amazing. I would highly recommend it, I just don't recommend staying in the city of Leon, trust and stay towards where all the touristy and amazing things are like the Mummy Museum and all that or Pipila. Now for the important part... Gameday.

We are told to meet at this plaza after 1pm, marching to the stadium at 7-7:30 and the match is at 9pm. We get to this plaza at around 4pm and it's literally like getting everyone from the tailgates and teleported them to a random plaza in Leon, Mexico ahahahaha. So many familiar faces and colors, then the party starts. Put it this way, there were two bars and over 600 people... so they ran out of beer and that wasn't even all of the 3252 members attending the match. The damn plaza went full blown North End loudness right as they were gathering everyone... and we start to march. At this moment, we walk out of the plaza blocking traffic in both directions as we get escorted by police to the stadium.... this is... WHAT FUCKING DREAMS ARE MADE OF! Bruh, I am supporters hypebeast, I watch endless videos of the biggest supporters around the world traveling from country to country and get police escorts through the city to the stadium on Champions League away days... and now we're doing it in Mexico. Here's the catch... fuck the Leon front office because we walked for what felt like 6 days and were dead and exhausted when we got to the stadium. Once we got to the stadium we were now sober, hungry, tired and so thirsty. We make it into our "cage" and there is no water, beer, food, clean bathroom or anything hahaha we were treated like shit and it was cool... we were the visitors and outside of the US, visitors aren't really welcomed. Still pretty fucking amazing experience.

Intros start... and the 3252, shits their pants (a liiiittle bit). We came into this chest out, head up with a mentality of "no one can stop us, we're the best in the MLS" well... this wasn't the MLS. We were confident to make all the noise needed to root for our club without drums... until Leon's supporters and the rest of the stadium joined this chant that sounded like "LEON! LEON! RA! RA! RA!" ... we were like, oh, ok ok. Cool... we got this. Leon kicks off and they start their chant "Vamos Leon" in the same song we do a "Los Angeles" chant and they're sooooo loud, we actually can't hear ourselves and can't stay on rhythm in our starting chant. Like, ohhh ok ok... this is uhhh crazy. The entire first half we moved capos around the section and did everything we could but for some reason we simply can't stay on rhythm for any song... we blame the people in the front, they sucked loololol jkjk. Also in the 1000+ fans that we in that cage, not everyone was a North End supporter so maybe not everyone was used to singing these songs but we kept trying... THEN Leon scores. Oh my god, that stadium ERUPTED. Look I've been to a losing away match and heard a stadium lose their lame shits over Zlatan... this wasn't even 15% of that, they scored and it felt like I got punched in the mouth. BUT by this moment, snacks, soda and water are being sold in these big plastic cups like at any sporting event. I will say, LAFC is slipping on the snacks, Leon had 3 tacos in a cup type of snacks! Fire.
Halftime: 1-0 Leon and someone has the fucking brilliant idea to get all the empty cups and use those as "drumsticks" to hit against the plastic seat to be able to drum and help everyone keep the rhythm of our chants.
2nd half starts and we're fucking BACK! We are able to chant for most of the 2nd half but Leon was balling out! The stadium was trying to drown us out and they kept getting louder and louder... as full time was coming to a close, 88 minutes into the game... an El-Munir mess up and Leon scores again!... puts them up 2-0... the entire stadium loses it's shit and we're stunned, I did not know what it felt like to have an entire stadium hate you that loudly and celebrate in your face that loudly until Leon did it to us.
Final score 2-0 then the supporters changed and gave us a standing ovation for the passion we showed and we were able to exchange scarves and jerseys with Leon fans to show the love, respect and gratitude we had for each other. We got escorted out by their riot squad and again Leon fans were outside clapping for us because they've never seen a traveling support like this and not only just a traveling fan base but the fact that we were from Los Angeles, we are from that American league that doesn't have supporters. It was unheard of that 1000+ MLS fans traveled for a CCL match in another country. LAFC & The 3252 did it. It was an incredible and humbling experience but knew the team had an uphill battle to overcome the 2-0 but we will show them how the 3252 does it at home.

Overwhelmingly amazing experience. I remember when we started that march and the chants started, I couldn't help but to get a little emotional. I couldn't believe that in just two years this was actually possible! And walking down the streets of Leon with TSG, Expos, Cuervos, the 420 homies, D9U, Luckys and BA... and more!! like we were all there! I know a ton of people couldn't make it but I feel like everyone did their best to represent themselves, their group, their club and the 3252. It's also been amazing coming back to LA and running into all these 3252 members I did not know until I met them in Leon...

This was originally supposed to all fit both matches on one post... Looks like I'll do a seperate post for the Home match.