Whether you know it yet or not, if you pass anywhere near uptown Charlotte today you will figure out very quickly that it's fiesta time.

Four international soccer teams will play, thousands of fans will show up at Bank of America Stadium to watch, and before all that the scene on Mint Street for the futbol festival will be unlike anything else we will see for the other 364 days of this year.

How can I be so sure? I witnessed much the same thing a year ago, when what amounted to the junior varsity of Mexico's national team came to Charlotte to play Iceland - yes, Iceland - in an exhibition.

More than 63,000 fans came to that one, with almost all of them wearing the green, white and red colors of the Mexican national team (nicknamed El Tri). I wrote in the next day's newspaper that for one wonderful night we had Cinco de Mayo, the World Cup and a Grateful Dead concert bundled into one in Charlotte.

The game itself in 2010? Not so good. The highlight came when Mexico ran onto the field for the warm-ups, when the roar was louder than the ones generated by 95 percent of all Carolina Panthers touchdowns over the past 15 years. Seriously. Then the teams played to a 0-0 tie - it was a soccer cliche come to life. You could see why that was Mexico's junior varsity, and why Iceland isn't exactly a global soccer power.

This time, though, the soccer will be higher quality, since these games actually matter (although the crowd might well not reach the lightning-in-a-bottle heights of last year's). For true soccer fans, it's especially significant there are going to be two games instead of one.

Costa Rica plays El Salvador at 7 p.m. Mexico - the headliner of this foursome, and the reason you'll see some women wearing green, red and white lipstick tonight - plays Cuba at 9 p.m.

These games are part of group play for the CONCACAF Gold Cup, which crowns a champion for North America, Central America and the Caribbean every two years.

Mexico is the defending champion. The U.S. is in a different round-robin group in the 12-team field. The final is June 25 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

So while last year's game was a "friendly," to use the soccer term for what amounts to an NFL preseason game, these games do count. While last year we had that nasty nada-nada tie, this time we have two games and two teams in Mexico and Costa Rica that won their opening games in this event by 5-0 scores.

But some things will remain the same. The umbrella-sized sombreros will be back in force - there must have been 1,000 of them last season. The street festival adjoining the stadium will tantalize with its alluring smells and draw many thousands.

I remember talking last year at the game to a construction worker from Charlotte named Manuel Justo. He had attended the game with his wife and their four children, all of whom were 10 years old.

Justo had moved to the U.S. 16 years ago, when he was a teenager.

"I have never seen the Mexican national team myself in person," Justo said. "Only on TV. So this is very exciting to all of us. I also want my children to see this team to help them understand how big soccer is in Mexico."

That's the sort of thing tonight is about. This is the closest Charlotte will come to hosting a part of the World Cup. It's an event worthy of the fiesta it will inspire.