"I'm 60 years old and I've seen 12 World Cups, and this is the best team we've ever had," José Valenzuela, a builder, says. "But I don't dare to dream that they can do anything. I've dreamed before and the fall hurts too much."
Mexican angst this year is not only rooted in the contest between flashes of hope and bitter experience. It also responds to the general aura of pessimism generated by the country's rampant drug wars, economic crisis and dysfunctional politics. There is a sense that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and no obvious reason why football should be a case apart.
This wasn't helped by an interview Javier "El Vasco" Aguirre gave in Spain in February, in which the coach not only played down Mexico's World Cup chances, but added he would be looking for a job elsewhere once the tournament is over. He concluded: "The country is screwed." The manager's subsequent promotional TV spots in Mexico beginning with the pronouncement "I love Mexico" are like all the perfumes of Arabia to the earlier celebrated phrase.
• Follow the Guardian's World Cup team on Twitter
• Sign up to play our great Fantasy Football game
• Stats centre: Get the lowdown on every player
• The latest team-by-team news, features and more
Political polarisation has added further ambivalence to the South African campaign. Just the idea that the president, Felipe Calderón, may attend today's inaugural match triggered an intense debate over whether he should be allowed to make political capital out of national emotion. His decision to go, arguing that he would be promoting bilateral relations, was widely ridiculed.
As the nation gets visibly more jumpy, one of the few who seems to have found a comfortable way out of all the anxiety is Mexico City's archbishop, Norberto Rivera. At the weekend he prayed to the Virgin of Guadalupe to "envelop the national team in her maternal protection". Prayers aside, the collective mood has improved slightly in the countdown to today's game. A poll released this week found 20% believe Mexico will get to the final, whereas a week ago the airwaves, bars and bus stops were buzzing with worry over whether the national team would get past the first round.
The swing was triggered by Mexico's 2-1 defeat of Italy in Brussels last Thursday, achieved with determination and a certain amount of flair, which belied the lacklustre mediocrity of most of the preparatory period. The following day the front pages were emblazoned with Carlos Vela with his finger on his lips after scoring the first goal. The message seemed directed at the naysayers back home, but not everybody took it that way. "Shhhh," ran the headline over the image in the national newspaper Reforma, "Don't wake us up."
When not lurching between wild fantasies of becoming world champions and self-flagellation about getting nowhere, everybody agrees that the real aspiration is to reach the elusive quinto partido – the fifth game. Mexico have got that far only once before, at Mexico '86, and Aguirre has described the objective for this year as "an obsession".
The theory goes that the number of players signed to European clubs have overcome the traditional fear of the big wide world that Mexicans usually blame for their history of underachievement.
Up front there is not only Arsenal's Vela, but Javier Hernández (nicknamed Chicharito, or little pea) just signed to Manchester United. There is the explosive midfield talent of Giovani dos Santos, playing for Galatasaray, the solidity provided by Barcelona's Rafael Márquez, and the creativity of Deportivo's Andrés Guardado.
And in the role of talisman there is Cuauhtémoc Blanco, a hard-nosed and neckless tough guy from the capital's infamous barrio bravo of Tepito. The 37-year-old hardly runs any more, is a little bit chubby and was recently caught smoking on camera, but his bunny hops inject some humour into the whole thing, and the occasional perfectly placed pass offers a little glory.