Let’s be honest: Not many soccer games happen in North America that anyone is all that crazy to see, in person.

The occasional Mexican League game. The rare Major League Soccer game. Some of the World Cup qualifiers.

And we’re about done. It’s not like the Old World, where every country has a national league rife with hot rivalries and lots of history. Almost any Premier League game, almost any game in Germany, Spain, Italy, France … heck, Holland, Scotland, Russia, Turkey, Switzerland, Austria … you would have a more interesting day seeing any of those hundreds of games played annually.

But you do have the rare exception, in North America, and maybe the best of all possible games is coming up tomorrow.

U.S. versus Mexico, Gold Cup final, Rose Bowl, 6 p.m.

I’d love to see that one in person and probably would … if I weren’t living on the other side of the planet.

Mexico and the Yanks is just about the only heated national rivalry in the hemisphere. Canada-U.S, no. Canada-Mexico, no. Mexico or the U.S. versus anyone in Central America or the Caribbean … no.

Mexico and the U.S. is always good, and when the teams are playing for something extra, it’s better yet.

I think immediately of the 2002 World Cup meeting between the two sides, with the U.S. winning 2-0 in South Korea. Landon Donovan scored the clinching goal on a header after a 60-yard run and a perfect cross from Eddie Lewis. And what made it even more fun? Knowing how much Mexico fans were suffering after they lost to the gringos.

The next-best thing to “game that gets one of us to the final eight in the World Cup”
is a Gold Cup final, and that’s what this is.

It’s the continental title, and half the time (as it will tomorrow) it decides who will go to the Confederations Cup, which has become a pretty big deal and also gives a side a chance to get a feel for the country that will hold the World Cup a year later.

(The U.S. played in the Confederations Cup in South Africa in 2009, and finished second, and the nice 2010 World Cup performance, in South Africa, in part was because the Yanks were playing in stadiums they’d been in the year before.)

The winner of this one gets to go to Brazil in 2013 as the North America’s representative, and the competition will include the champions of five other continental aggregations, as well as Brazil, the host. In South Africa, the U.S. was in a group with Brazil, Italy and Egypt, and beat Spain in the semi-finals, maybe the most impressive victory in American history.

But I digress. The Confederations Cup matters, but just beating the other guy, in a Mexico-U.S. Gold Cup final, is usually enough.

Why is this such a rivalry?

Mexico still believes they are The Futbol Superpower of North America. It is a notion that dies hard, despite the U.S. pretty much owning Mexico in any game played outside of Azteca over the past decade. (Forget Mexico’s 5-0 win in 2009; that was against the U.S. B Team.)

Also, with Mexico, there is this sense of “at least we’re better than you in something we care about” that is being eroded, too. If Mexico isn’t better in soccer, what has it go to hold over the gringos’ heads? See?

Mexico is further infuriated that half of the United States still has no idea this game is happening … and that soccer remains maybe the fifth-biggest sport in the States. That is, the only sport Mexico really cares about … and they can’t be sure of beating the Yanks, for whom soccer is a still an afterthought.

For the U.S., it mostly is about messing with Mexico. They care so much … it’s great fun to beat them.

The atmosphere in the Rose Bowl will be intense, and maybe even vaguely dangerous. Mexico and Mexicans take this very, very seriously, and Mexico fans will make up at least 60,000 of the crowd of 90,000-plus. Many of them will jeer the U.S. national anthem and they will shout obscenities at the Yanks in both English and Spanish.

Actually, some of the rudest fans I have ever seen have been Mexican fans in the U.S. at games between the two countries, and it’s worse here than in Azteca, because in Mexico City all of Mexico assumes a victory and they’re fairly well chilled out.

In the U.S., however, this game is supposed to be the Revenge of the Oppressed Immigrants, and when it doesn’t work out, it can get ugly.

And yet another factor that makes this a big game: Mexico tends to take over big stadiums when it is playing in the U.S., and the World Cup qualifiers are routinely played in, like, Columbus. The U.S. used to play Mexico in big venues all the time because the federation needed the money. Now? Not such a big deal, so they want an intimate setting where they can channel in U.S. fans.

This, however, is in SoCal at a big yard, and Mexico fans will take over the place.

I happen to believe Mexico wins this one. They aren’t in the middle of rebuilding their team, as the Yanks are. And they have one ascendant player, Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez, who is so good that he often started at forward for Manchester United this past season — at age 22. He scored 13 goals in 27 ManU games, and has seven goals in this Gold Cup. The Yanks don’t really have a guy who can hang with him. And, it will be like a home game for Mexico.

The U.S. tactics probably will be what they always run out for Mexico — try to soak up pressure from the Mexico attack. Mexico’s teams seem to get a little crazy when they see the Yanks, and they want to score right this minute … and when the U.S. wins, it tends to be on counter-attack goals against a tiring and out-of-position Mexico side. (Like Donovan’s goal in the 2002 World Cup.)

Still, this time, with Chicharito likely to have a goal before half, I live Mexico’s chances.

I covered the Gold Cup final between the Yanks and Mexico in 1993, at Azteca (Mexico 4-0) and the 1998 final at the Coliseum (Mexico 1-0), and I would love to see this one, too. Thing is, I’d have to leave now to get to Pasadena before kickoff.

I’ll look for it on TV, instead.