What makes this article compelling isn’t just its take on the 1986 World Cup, but how it challenges the idea that sports crowds are passive or easily manipulated. By focusing on fan behavior rather than players or matches, the author shows that disorder and noise (what Monsiváis calls el desmadre) can actually function political expression. This reframes chaos as something meaningful rather than immature or accidental, which is a powerful shift in how we think about protest.
The argument is especially convincing because it complicates the usual narrative that governments always succeed in using mega-sporting events to control public opinion. While the PRI clearly tried to turn the World Cup into a nationalist distraction, the article explains that people can appropriate these same events for their own purposes. The stadium becomes a contested space rather than a propaganda machine, suggesting that power is never fully one-sided.
This idea has clear relevance today. Modern sporting events from the Olympics to the World Cup to NFL games are still used to project unity and patriotism, but fans continue to resist in subtle and overt ways whether through protests chants, or symbolic actions. The article encourages us to look beyond official messaging and pay attention to how ordinary people use popular culture to push back against authority.
The article successfully argues that resistance does not always look organized or formal. Sometimes it is loud, messy, and playful and that may be exactly what makes it effective.
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