THE INTERNATIONAL FANTASY LEAGUE
WEEK 3: AND THEN THERE WAS ONE (ALSO, MEET TEAM MEXICO)

Courtesy Alberto Levet

Alberto Levet, skipper of Team Mexico.

The backfield's stacked with Marion Barber, Michael Turner and Jonathan Stewart; Kurt Warner's chucking the ball; and Reggie Wayne and Andre Johnson are catching it. So it's no surprise that Team Japan is the lone team sitting at 3-0 after three weeks of competition in the ESPN International Fantasy Football League.

On the flipside, Team USA, managed by yours truly, sputtered to a scoring record in Week 3—37 big ones—and now the ENTIRE roster is on the block.

For the league: all comers are welcome.

For the readers: I didn't know as I put this ragtag USA roster together that my team would be a metaphor for our nation's place in the world in 2008. Team USA can't get any symbiotic trades going with other countries and its players plod from one week to the next with no real plans for weeks to come. But as with the real USA, hope will not fizzle. Our country has the presidential election to get us on track. Team USA has the backfield hydra of Earnest Graham, Darren McFadden and Pierre Thomas. THAT is some audacious hope.

Back to the good teams. Not far behind Team Japan sits Team Mexico. A flashier, hot-cold squad with players like Tony Romo, Adrian Peterson and DeSean Jackson, Team Mexico sits at 2-1 after a loss this week to Saudi Arabia's Prince Abdullah. His team found some giddy-up after a forgettable first two weeks, and lit up the rest of the world with 123 points (more than three times Team USA's output). Team Saudi Arabia is now 1-2.

Coping with his loss to the Prince this week is Alberto Levet Cervantes, a lifelong resident of Mexico City who recently moved to Los Angeles. He's been an NFL junkie for years. After watching the 1989 Super Bowl—49ers-Bengals, Montana to Taylor—Alberto was hooked. He didn't choose the 49ers or Bengals as his team, but he did learn to perform the Ickey Shuffle in elementary school. Dazzled by Randall Cunningham's athleticism as Eagles quarterback, he became a die-hard Philly fan, and he's convinced their time is coming soon.

Alberto, 30, says that it's not so bizarre for him to be an football fan, as Mexico is the second-most popular NFL nation after the U.S. The NFL has an office there and even hosts Monday Night Football parties at local restaurants, bars, clubs and movie theaters. The league also has summer football camps in Mexico and chose Mexico City to host a regular-season matchup between the 49ers and the Cardinals in 2006.

Let's take a second to appreciate real fandom. I'm getting these notes from International League players, and ALL of them have some version of this story: their favorite NFL team is in a big game, and they have no way to see it on television wherever they live. So they watch the play-by-play game log online, biting their nails the whole time.

Alberto's story puts him in Italy in 2003, when the Eagles played the Bucs in the NFC Championship Game. He was listening to the game, following the play-by-play on NFL.com and IM'ing with his cousin at the same time. When the Bucs picked off a Donovan McNabb pass at the end of the game and scored, Alberto says that his cousin told him about it via chat before it showed up onscreen.

"I didn't believe him," he says. "I didn't sleep that night at all."

With some prodding, Alberto admits that soccer is probably his first love. He's been playing since he was six, and is already seeking out a league in Los Angeles after a recent ACL injury.

"I would NEVER EVER play football," he says. "Just by watching football and looking at the scary injuries that happen every week, it scares the hell out of me."

The sport he loves to play and the sport he'd never play are the only two things he watches on TV. Even that, he says, is too much for his wife to take. She sleeps on Sundays while he watches football.

"She describes it as 'the fat idiots' game'," he says. "She has no clue."

Print Article . Email Article. Subscribe to The Magazine