Miguel Herrera, the latest coach of the Mexican football team not to get the axe, has been nicknamed Barney Rubble by the media because he looks (and acts?) like the likeable Flintstones character.
So, if Ricki Herbert was to have a cartoon avatar, who would he be? Is he more Fred Flintstone or Homer Simpson? Let's hope he is like neither of those characters as they both suffer from short tempers and a lack of wisdom, which is why they make us laugh and cringe at the same time.
The All Whites won't want us to laugh at them or cringe with them today when they play in Mexico City in front of a full house (more than 100,000 people) in the clouds (2240m above sea level).
The Estadio Azteca does sound like it belongs in a fantasy world like Bedrock, and the hype surrounding this World Cup qualifying game predicts crowd behaviour will most likely be uncouth, with bus-rocking, laser lights, and the hurling of rocks predicted. There may even be a Mexican wave or two (couldn't help myself).
El Tri, ranked 24th in the world, should be able to utilise its technical skills to annihilate the 79th-ranked All Whites, but with everything that has been going on leading up to this event perhaps it will be off its game.
The All Whites will be praying that is the case as they learn to deal with the frenzied level of attention from football fans they are not used to. Being mobbed and dealing with media scrums is probably something the All Whites returning from the World Cup unbeaten experienced to some degree, but the first game against Mexico takes everything to another level of hysteria.
What will New Zealand's tactics be? It looks like they'll be sticking to Herbert's preferred 3-4-3 formation used to great effect during the World Cup campaign. Or did the players ad-lib and take their chances to score?
Herbert has been criticised for his defensive tactics, which led to his demise as the Wellington Phoenix coach, but at the New Zealand level, we're willing to accept almost any tactic that helps us to save face.
Anything that helps the All Whites to survive Estadio Azteca with its super-high altitude, super-confident coach of three weeks, super-hyped home crowd, and super-talented players will do.
Surviving the game with their pride intact is the first hurdle. The second is surviving the aftermath if, by some divine intervention, they beat Mexico. Then they will have to deal with nine million residents who will either turn on their own team or take it out on the All Whites.
Seeing how passionate the football fans are in Mexico puts everything in perspective. Yes, it was nice that the Maori All Blacks got to play in front of a humble crowd of almost 20,000 in Philadelphia, and it has been great watching the All Blacks beat France again as a warm-up game to their revenge match against England.
Rugby league is a little more treacherous as the players at the Rugby League World Cup deal with injuries they inflict on each other, snake invasions, and drunks punching them while they patiently wait in a queue to get into a club.
The level of fan expectation in rugby and rugby league, however, is not as over-zealous as it is in football, and this surely must play on the minds of the domestic players in the Mexican team who will feel that - literally - this game against the All Whites is a life-and-death affair.
An ideal scenario would be a valiant effort by the All Whites but with Mexico triumphant by one goal.
Then our boys can come back to New Zealand, acclimatise quickly and feel much safer and ready to tackle Mexico on home turf, where the stadium is super-cosy, the crowd super-friendly, and the weather super-unpredictable.
