The team, until recently, has been in the USL First Division playoff picture. The RailHawks are currently 4-7-7 and sit six points out of the final playoff spot. They’ve reached the quarterfinals of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. Attendance at SAS Soccer Park is right around the league average, too.

For all their early successes, there have been some missteps, none perhaps bigger than adequately marketing the team to the Triangle’s burgeoning Hispanic population.

In an effort to reach out to the nearly 60,000 Latinos in Wake County, Carolina secured an exhibition match against one of Mexico’s top club teams: Cruz Azul. The RailHawks will play “Los Cementoros” in an exhibition tonight (Wednesday) at SAS Soccer Park at 8 p.m.

“My first and biggest goal was to hit that market and hit it hard,” said Brian Wellman, Carolina’s assistant general manager, who finalized the negotiations to secure the match against Cruz Azul. “Not just for face value, but to really get into their community, like we’re getting into the local Anglo community. That is why we picked up El Salvador-Hondarus, Chivas and why we worked so hard to get Cruz Azul. The sky is the limit.”

In March, the Carolina organization hosted an international friendly between the El Salvador and Honduras national teams. In May, the RailHawks played Chivas USA, a Major League Soccer team that is owned by Mexico’s Jorge Vergara. Vergara also owns Chivas de Guadalajara, one of the most popular and successful teams in Mexico.

Now with Cruz Azul, the organization is trying again to appeal to the area’s Hispanics and show them their importance to the club’s success. The idea, Wellman said, is to attract them to watch the visitor and convert them to becoming RailHawks fans by the end of the night.

Wellman said Hispanics were nearly nonexistent at SAS Soccer Park early in the season. He saw a change after the Chivas match, which drew a near sellout crowd, most of which was there to see Chivas. The RailHawks played well and won 2-0.

“That’s when it really turned,” Wellman said. “We really gained the respect of the [Hispanic] community.”

Cruz Azul plays in the 18-team La Primera División, Mexico’s top domestic league.

Cruz Azul has won eight La Primera División titles, trailing only Club America (10) and Chivas de Guadalajara (11). They’ve also won the CONCACAF Champions Cup five times.

Cruz Azul made headlines in May after it defied a lifetime ban for defender Salvador Carmona and played him in the league championships.

In 2005, Carmona tested positive for stanozolol, a steroid, at the FIFA Confederations Cup in Germany. He received a one-year ban from the Mexican Football Federation (FMF).

On Jan. 31, 2006, he tested positive again for stanozolol. But he was not further disciplined. In July, FMF nullified the second positive test because it believed the “B” sample was destroyed.

The World Anti-Doping Agency appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) for a lifetime ban.

On May 16, CAS upheld the World Anti-Doping Agency’s wish. The decision came down the day before Cruz Azul was to play the first leg of its national league semifinal against Pachuca.

Cruz Azul defied the order and played Carmona in the team’s 3-1 loss May 17. The following day, FMF disqualified Cruz Azul from the league championship.

In June, the team replaced Isaac Mizrahi with Sergio Markarian, who coached Paraquay’s national team to the 2002 World Cup, as its new coach.

Wellman expects games such as the one against Cruz Azul to be a part of every summer for the RailHawks. Because this time of year is the preseason for most of Central America’s leagues, those teams are looking for strong competition that will help them prepare for their upcoming seasons.

In the years to come, though, the organization is hoping the area’s Latinos will come out to support the RailHawks, regardless of the opponent or where it is from.

“I can’t stress how important this is to our organization,” Wellman said. “This is extremely important to us and we’ll do everything in the world to make them comfortable at every game and convert them into RailHawks fans.”

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.