Cinco de Mayo soccer fiesta scores goal.

Byline: Tim Christie The Register-Guard

SPRINGFIELD - On May 5, 1862, Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza led 4,000 Mexican soldiers in a victory over a larger French force in the Battle of Puebla.

But the crowds who converged Saturday on the 32nd Street Community Sports Park weren't there to take a history lesson. Rather, the point of the second annual Cinco de Mayo Soccer Tournament and Fiesta was to have fun and celebrate Mexican culture.

As many as 20,000 people were expected to attend the festival over its three-day run, which ends today at 8:30 p.m.

The event is sponsored by LaX, the Latino radio station owned by Eugene-based Churchill Media. It's the third such event the station has sponsored - the first was last year's Cinco de Mayo, followed by a festival to mark Mexican Independence Day in September - and each time it gets a little bigger, said Paul Danitz, general manager of Churchill Media.

"This is authentic Cinco de Mayo," he said. "It's reaching into the lifestyle of the Hispanic community - soccer, food, family entertainment."

Nelson Zepeda, one of the hosts of LaX's morning show, said the Latino community in Eugene and Springfield needs events like the Cinco de Mayo celebration.

"It's a good way to get the community together," he said. "The attraction is it's a family event."

The smell of sizzling meat and the loping rhythms of Mexican pop music filled the air, punctuated by the occasional tweet of the referee's whistle on the soccer fields.

In addition to 18 soccer teams from around the Northwest battling on two fields, the event featured a carnival, a performance stage, and two rows of booths with vendors selling authentic Mexican food (plus one Asian food booth), Mexican soccer jerseys, Mexican wrestling masks, CDs, T-shirts and ball caps. And in a testament to the growing market power of the Latino community, real estate firms, lenders, insurers and health clubs also set up shop.

Perhaps the biggest draw of the event was Saturday night's performance by Los Angeles Azules, a chart-topping cumbia dance band from Mexico. The band performed inside the adjacent Regional Sports Center, with tickets going for $30 a pop.

Fidel Garcia, a Springfield mortgage broker, said he was glad his town was hosting the event for the culture it would bring.

Louis Valdez of Eugene, with his wife and two children, ages 2 years and 8 months, said he, too, is glad to see an event to celebrate Latino culture.

"The Hispanic population is growing here," he said.

Melanie Konradi, a Springfield physician, said the event reminded her of celebrations in her native Texas.

"It's fun to go to a Cinco de Mayo celebration again," she said.

John Musumeci, the developer whose wife, Suzanne Arlie, owns Churchill Media, said he was pleased to see so many Anglos show up for the festival.

"I'm surprised by the diversity of the crowd," he said.

Said Zepeda: "Cinco de Mayo is not only for us Latinos."

CINCO DE MAYO EVENT

When: Today, 7 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Where: 32nd Street Community Sports Park, 400 S. 32nd St., Springfield