New USL-1 side, the Austin Aztex are playing three MLS sides in February.  Care to guess who they are?

Time’s up.  It’s Houston (right down the road, okay), Columbus (reigning champs, okay, probably good for ticket sales), and FCD, uh, New England.  Huh?  With FCD scheduling top-flight teams like the University of Memphis for scrimmages, you’d wonder why they wouldn’t jump at the chance to pencil in the Aztex for a friendly battle for a plate, cup, boot, or artillery piece.

Sure, finding time to scrimmage can be tricky.  And FCD will be going to Florida in late February, and Brazil in early March.  But I can only wonder if Hitch et al. are put off by the iconography of playing a team named after the Aztecs:  didn’t the Mesoamericans play some sort of deadly ball game where the goal was to put the ball through a Hoop?  (Ew.) Why, yes, in fact, they did:

And if that wasn’t enough fun, the losers were, uh, relegated…

It is said that the ball represented the head (or often was the head) of a sacrificed victim. In Tenochtitlan, the ball court was at the foot of the bloodstained stairs of the temple, and the ball game itself would often be a scene of sacrifice. It is believed that the losing coach, or even the whole team, might be sacrificed.

So, here’s to you, you FC Dallas Scrimmage-Scheduling Person — it might be poor form to let the Dynamo get in on the ground floor with a new team, but your knowledge of ancient Mesoamerican customs ensured that our boys in red and white aren’t going to be sacrificed in the ball courts of Austin.