Could it be that Mexican soccer is finally coming of age?

Earlier this month, the Guadalajara club team Chivas eliminated Argentina’s powerful Boca Juniors from the Copa Libertadores. Then on Sunday, the Mexican national team beat Brazil 1-0 in the Confederations Cup in Germany, stretching its unbeaten run to 20 games. Mexican teams have always found it difficult to beat Argentinean or Brazilian opposition, so the twin triumphs raise hopes that Mexican soccer may be getting out from under what many have long seen as a numbing inferiority complex.

Both victories came heavily flavored with controversy. Things started with Chivas’s thoroughly deserved 4-0 wipeout of Boca in Guadalajara on June 2, with the return leg in Buenos Aires still to come in Boca’s intimidating Bombonera stadium. Chivas was promised a hot reception from the notoriously noisy Boca fans, and a torrid time on the field as Boca went in search of the five goals they needed to turn the series around.

Sure enough, over 50,000 fans jampacked the Bombonera last Tuesday night, roaring and yelling and screaming and singing their heads off. But the goals did not come. Far from wilting under the pressure, the Mexicans played cool and calm defense and counterattacked with menacing precision.

Boca’s game soon showed signs of frustration and desperation: Passes went astray, tackles were mistimed (or was that part of the intimidation?), players argued with each other. The Boca attacks were incessant, but inchoate. When they did result in a shot on goal, Chivas goalkeeper Jose Corona, having the sort of magical night that all keepers dream of, saved everything – including one superb, twisting, balletic leap to turn a Martin Palermo header over the bar. (Ironically, Corona is not a Chivas player, but is on loan from UAG Tecos – a procedure that is permitted under Libertadores rules).

The explosion came with 10 minutes left in the game and the score still locked at 0-0. After getting fouled by Boca’s Raul Cascini, Chivas’s Adolfo “Bofo” Bautista got to his feet and held up four fingers, taunting Boca with the first-game scoreline. Palermo rushed up, out of control, pushing and shoving everyone, including the Uruguayan referee Martin Vazquez.

Bofo tried to walk away, but Palermo pursued him and head-butted him from behind. Vazquez red-carded both players. As Bofo was being escorted off the field – guarded by a posse of police shielding him against missiles now being hurled by the crowd – he passed the Boca bench, where the Boca coach Jorge Benitez was seen to spit on him.

More adventures awaited poor Bofo. Before he could be led down the tunnel, a fan got onto the field and aimed a punch at him. Referee Vazquez waited over 20 minutes until approximate order was restored, and tried to re-start the game. Corona, waiting in midfield with all the other players, was told to go back into his goal. A television close-up revealed a look of near-terror on his face. He walked to the penalty area, turned around, and started to back into the goalmouth. Immediately, the missiles showered down … Corona raced back to midfield, and the game was abandoned.

The following day, Palermo was repentant, coach Benitez resigned, and Boca owner Mauricio Macri apologized to Chivas, saying that the uproar did “not fit in with our prestigious 100-year-old institution.” Boca, one of South America’s greatest clubs, is in disgrace and awaits punishment from the South American soccer federation. As for Chivas, the only Mexican club that has never signed a foreign player, it marches on to play Brazil’s Atletico Paranaense in the first leg of the Libertadores Cup semifinal on Thursday night.

But Chivas faces a major problem for that game and for the return leg a week later. The team will be missing four key players – Ramon Morales, Omar Bravo, Alberto Medina, and goalkeeper Corona – because they are now in Germany with the national team. Sunday’s 1-0 win over Brazil advanced Mexico to the Confederations Cup semifinals, meaning that the players won’t leave Germany until June 30.

In the meantime, the Mexicans are duly celebrating the thrill of beating Brazil.

“It’s satisfying to see how we’re growing and able to beat great teams. We’re getting better all the time,” said coach Ricardo Lavolpe, who can be expected to find extra pleasure in a win over Brazil, because he is Argentinean. (One of Lavolpe’s star players, Zinha, is a naturalized Brazilian.)

There is reason to suspect that the Confederations Cup is not being taken entirely seriously – especially since Argentina and Brazil sent less than full squads. But the Brazilians beat European champion Greece 3-0, ripping apart the stubborn defense that had repulsed every opponent last summer. Detractors maintain that the Greeks played with none of their customary intensity, no doubt looking ahead to crucial Word Cup qualifying games this fall. Still, Brazil’s ball artists took advantage of the opportunity to shine, with Adriano cracking a superb 30-yard goal, and 20-year-old Robinho looking ever more likely to join Brazil’s never-ending line of dazzling forwards. Serious or not, it was dazzling, highly entertaining soccer.

So too was the Brazil-Mexico game, and there could be no doubt that Mexico was taking this seriously. Robinho and Adriano were tightly – though not roughly – marked, as was the world’s best player, Ronaldinho. Even so, Brazil created plenty of chances, and missed all of them. Jared Borgetti, with an angled header from a corner kick, gave the Mexicans their win.

“We reckon it’s time the world sat up and took notice of us,” said Borgetti after the game, “We’ve proved Mexico can play good soccer.”

In truth, Mexico has been playing good soccer for quite a while. It has turned on the style in the last three World Cups, and has duly been saluted – or is it damned? – as “entertaining.” But it has never managed to get further than the quarterfinals.

Mexico has always had good players; technically, they are among the best in the world. Their problem lies elsewhere. A former coach of Mexico, Javier Aguirre, has said that they need to overcome their miedo de exito, their fear of success. And that was the remarkable thing about the victories over Boca and Brazil – both owed as much to commitment as to good soccer. Brazil’s coach, Carlos Alberto Parreira, even had words of praise for the Mexican defense, long considered a weak point of Mexican soccer.

Two games may be too little to announce a lifting of what has looked like a national psychological burden, but it’s tempting to do so, because we’ve been waiting so long for this great enigma – Mexico’s lack of international stature – to fade away.

Tomorrow, Brazil must beat Japan to avoid elimination, while Mexico plays Greece – a game without meaning. Unless, that is, you count Mexico’s newfound confidence and its wish to make it 21 unbeaten games in a row.