Amuse Productions

It took me a bit to sit on this victory and see what may lead towards El Tri’s next venture, however in the week that they beat Panama in the Gold Cup final 1-0, they’ve announced 4 friendlies that they will be playing in September and October, those being:

September – 9/9 Mexico vs Australia @ AT&T Stadium, 9/12 Mexico vs Uzbekistan @ Mercedes-Benz Stadium

October – 10/14 Mexico vs Ghana @ TBA, 10/17 Mexico vs Germany @ Lincoln Financial Field

Now one of these friendlies definitely stands out like a sore thumb, and this is actually more of a tour by the DFB or the German Football Association, as 10/14 Germany also has a friendly against the USMNT. This is actually part of a semi plan to try to convince German teams that not only is CONCACAF worthy of working with European teams but mainly with the DFB. MLS already has Bayern Munich working closely with LAFC to scout any players if necessary, while Borussia Dortmund are known to be working closely with both MLS and USL teams to see if any of those players can go through their academy. So, that’s the USMNT, but what about Mexico and the FMF?

After the 2022 World Cup, which personally surprised me as to how well they actually kept up with at least Argentina, even players including Messi coming out to say it was their most difficult team to play in the World Cup, the FMF saw it as a disaster when they couldn’t even reach anything out of the group stage. So, in January a plan was put in place to try to focus closer and invest time into Mexican born and bred talent. Mexican clubs were made aware that by 2025 teams were required to have 1 less player not born in Mexico, as well as them trying to come up with a plan to convince FIFA and European clubs to actually lower the amount of time needed for a visa to go play somewhere that isn’t CONCACAF. All in all, it’s kind of been politics that have driven Mexico to finally wake up, however, for as long as I can remember, Mexican clubs and owners of Mexican clubs, hate change that doesn’t make them more money. If you’ve ever followed any Mexican club, you’ll see the same coaches have been moved around across a lot of the teams the past 10-15 years, as well as players, and that’s because they know that at least players if they let go of them, will only have one way to go, MLS or South America, where their own born and bred players are obviously favored over the estranged Mexican player. What the FMF chose to do about this is monitor the clubs and their finances closer, as well as try to accustom and ease the team into this drastic change where more European teams would be presented to and be playing and working with these teams and their federation. For example, last year we saw Club America face off against Manchester City, Chelsea, and from Argentina, Boca Juniors and River Plate. A big difference in friendlies considering they gain more exposure and more tenures to be had.

It seems like the moves have been coming for a while with the partnership of European clubs as Atletico Madrid actually bought San Luis Potosi back in 2019, and reintroduced them as Atletico San Luis, including giving them their colors and everything, as well as Villareal CF being in partnership with Mazatlán to potentially act as a B team for the club. Although, I understand why Mexican clubs are scared to become B teams, I believe they shouldn’t simply view it as such, they should view it more as open opportunities to move players from here to there and vice versa. Atlas this past weekend just played a friendly against Sporting Gijon and could be a start to their partnership. Now, to bring in the last point before we get into the team itself, the FMF claims that the difference between players going straight from Mexico to any European club normally takes 8 years to fulfill any visa whatsoever, unless you’re a Javier Hernandez, Gio Dos Santos, or Guillermo Ochoa, with a name like that, its normally granted upon agreement with the European club and FIFA to grant that player a temporary visa for the timespan of the contract. What the FMF is trying to work with FIFA is to shorten it to 2 years, especially when it’s like that for the MLS clubs and the privilege that the USMNT has of continuing to scout foreign bred players with US citizenship. Sure they’re not fully American, but you can’t hate on them being smart, as in international football, experience means a lot, even if some Mexican players can be granted tenures in the lower divisions in England or Germany, or even Spain, its better to get that experience and have some advantage, than continuing to go in blind against these bigger opponents.

Currently there are 62 players from Mexico playing in Europe, across all levels of competition, while out of those 62, 24 play in at least the 2nd division or better, and out of those 24, only 10 play in the top 5 leagues in Europe, and even then out of those 10, 5 (Technically 6) play in the senior national team. While for the USMNT, 10 players alone play in the Premier League to Mexico’s 1, while 14 play in the Bundesliga to Mexico’s 0. Anyways, to talk about the team itself briefly, starting off with a disastrous 10 game run with Diego Cocca, including a humiliating 3-0 loss to the US, Jaime Lozano comes in a week before the Gold Cup and seemingly turns things around in such a short span of time. in the 6 games they played, 5 were won and the first time they scored 4+ in a competition in over 4 years, which we talked about in an earlier article. The level of play Mexico played was not flawless, but very promising. They seemed tactically sound and on an offensive level at least, they were very coherent, which we have not seen in a very long time with this team. The 4-3-3 formation is what Lozano decided to lineup Mexico every game and for the most part it worked, but I believe a 4-4-1-1 would work perfectly, with either Henry Martin or Santi Gimenez as your Number 9, and having either Orbellin Pineda, Luis Chavez, or Luis Romo as your starting Number 10. What Mexico lacks is confidence on those wings, even though that is where most play was coming from. Where Mexico shines is simply outplaying their opponent in their brilliant passing play and lanes that overlapping fullbacks executed perfectly. When it comes to defense, they really need to focus on shutting down the counterattacks, and that mainly boils down to faster fullbacks or cutting back on the number of midfielders that attack leaving less gaps in the defense. Santi, Martin, Chavez, Cesar Montes, and Jesus Gallardo were definitely stand outs of this tournament and will definitely be looked at by bigger European teams if they continue this level of play. Hopefully these upcoming friendlies and a full turnover of the keys to Jaime Lozano may lead Mexico to having a lot better play that we haven’t seen in a very long time. Especially with rumors circling that Alfredo Tena may be the 2nd hand to Lozano, it seems like its an inheritance a long time coming from foreign coaches, especially from South America. I have nothing against any foreign coaches, I mean hell most of my favorite teams have foreign coaches themselves, but to quote Edson Alvarez a few days before the Gold Cup at the arrival of Jaime Lozano, “To put it simple, when a Mexican coaches this team, you feel represented, more comfortable”. That in itself translates a lot of the confidence boost this team has, and well, personally the teams seems to be doing something right, lets just hope they keep performing.