The goal: All you can eat

Leave it up to sports, in this case soccer’s World Cup in South Africa, to break down cultural barriers.

In some cases, Mexican Americans are pulling for Mexico’s team while Mexican immigrants who have long since become U.S. citizens are cheering on the U.S. squad.

If basketball greats Julius Erving and Magic Johnson forced a predominantly white audience to forget about skin color for the moment and simply see them as fantastic athletes in a sport they truly loved, the World Cup, which begins early Friday morning with a match between Mexico and South Africa, provides a different twist to the polarization that’s been sweeping the country lately, sports enthusiasts say.

“Hey, I think Mexico has the better team. What more can I say? I’ll be rooting for them,” says Fernando Lopez, a carpenter who was eating at El Campeon Carniceria and Taqueria in Costa Mesa on Wednesday. “But that still doesn’t mean that the U.S. government shouldn’t try to do something about the Mexican people coming across the border illegally.”

And so Lopez, whose grandparents came from Mexico but whose parents were born in Southern California, is doing what many fans so often do: Absorb the statistics and cheer with their heads, not necessarily with their hearts.

Hilario Gonzalez, the owner of El Campeon market on Wilson Street and Harbor Boulevard, is going with his heart, and will be cheering for Mexico, his home country, even if he’s a U.S. citizen and has lived here more years than there.

He left Mexico nearly three decades ago for a better life in Costa Mesa, where his brothers greeted him with open arms and a better way of life, where all three of them now run a pair of Mexican markets. Gonzalez has started a pool on the first six games involving the United States and Mexico versus other countries, including South Africa, France, Argentina, Uruguay, England, Algeria and Slovenia.

Those who pick the winners successfully will win a free lunch for an entire week, courtesy of Gonzalez, who’s owned the market for a decade .

“I’m talking about ‘all you can eat,’” says Gonzalez, whose first job in this country was working as a butcher in the late 1970s at age 21. “If you want two big burritos and five different side orders, then you can have them.”

Gonzalez said his second-favorite team in the World Cup is the United States, and that he’d be rooting for them if Mexico wasn’t in the picture.

Asked what his stake in the pool was and how would he benefit if he’s not collecting any money, Gonzalez said it was simply “for the love of the World Cup.”

Of course, the more that customers have heard about his deal, mostly by word-of-mouth or by the advertisement on the outside of the store, the more they’ve begun to show up at his market.

Deadline to participate in the pool is tonight .

Gonzalez, 52, still plays soccer in the Veterans Soccer League in Costa Mesa, where he’s the team’s goalie. His love for the game is obvious.

The inside of the joint contains at least a dozen different countries’ flags, something he hung up just a few weeks ago, as though he were preparing for Christmas or some special holiday.

Gonzalez, from Morelia, Michoacan, grew up with soccer, much like mainstream Americans children were reared on T-ball or basketball.

“Soccer’s the fourth tier over here,” says Hosane Zama, the Iranian-born owner of Zama, a small store that sells soccer merchandise in Costa Mesa on College Avenue off Baker Street.

“But if you go to Europe or anywhere south of the United States, all you’re going to hear about is “‘futbol,’” he said. Zama, 54, who grew up in Tehran, leaving at age 17, said he’s been selling soccer uniforms and merchandise since 1986.

“I’m the man, and I’ve always been the man for quite a while,” he says. “If somebody wants 24 uniforms right away, they call me and I’m on it immediately.”

Zama moved to Newport Beach after vacationing there from Illinois in 1992. He loves the way soccer is played around the world, different as it is in each place.

“Here, the soccer games are more organized,” Zama said. “Over in Iran, kids mostly just played pickup ball, but the game is the best there ever is, regardless.”