McAllen business owner Pablo Arriaga and his friend Hector Garcia will be among the 87,000 spectators inside Estadio Azteca when host country Mexico takes on South Africa.

Arriaga spent a year working to make the trip happen, tracking down tickets for what he calls the most expensive World Cup in history.

"It's once in a lifetime, so I had to. It's everybody's dream, which it is for a soccer fan," Arriaga said.

He found the tickets in December, paying $7,000 each. When travel costs and souvenirs are added in, the full trip will run more than $10,000 per person.

"They're good tickets; they're category one," Garcia said.

The two have been soccer fans since childhood and met a few years ago. Garcia said he was in once Arriaga mentioned that he had tickets.

"He had already told me he had a few tickets for a few games, so I said, 'As long as you don't change friends, I'm going,'" Garcia said.

Back in the Valley, Arriaga runs a sports gear store called Soccer Shoppe. He said sales have tripled leading up to the World Cup and expects that trend to continue throughout the tournament.

He also said fans are showing strong interest in teams beyond Mexico.

"Portugal, Argentina, and Brazil are still selling a lot," Arriaga said.

For Arriaga, the trip is more than 30 years in the making.

"Everything lined up perfectly. Everybody would want to be there; there's a lot of emotions, and it's really cool, really amazing that we have the opportunity to be there," Arriaga said.

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