Mexico Post-mortem

OK--this is old news since Mexico was eliminated over a week ago. That has also given me some time to reflect on some of the things that went wrong with the team. Though not a serious candidate to win the World Cup--many of us had hoped Mexico would get past the dreaded round of 16, especially with such a talented new generation of players that won the under-17 World Cup in 2005. And in the final analysis I think the bulk of the responsibility has to go to Mexico's coach Javier "El Vasco" Aguirre. This is particularly upsetting considering he was the third best paid coach in the cup (only behind England's Capello and Italy's Lippi, who curiously fared no better!). Here are some of the decisions many of us fans never understood, more or less in order of importance.

1. Not starting Chicharito Herndandez and instead put Guille Franco who showed absolutely nothing. Chicharito, Mexico's new scoring sensation who was recently picked up by Manchester United and was clocked as the fastest player in this World Cup, scored 2 goals in 169 minutes vs Franco who played 254 minutes with no goals and many missed opportunities. How many goals would Chicharito have scored if Vasco would have played him full-time?

2. Goalkeeper choice -- Vasco went with Conejo Perez even though he is clearly past his prime (37 years old) and looked very slow in many plays (caught in "no man's land" in South Africa's goal, failed to hold on to the ball in Argentina's first offside goal, and several others). This wouldn't be so much of a "crime" if Mexico didn't count with two excellent goalkeepers in Guillermo Ochoa and especially Luis Michel who just had an absolutely brilliant season with Chivas.

3. Not starting Andres Guardado, another of Mexico's promising young stars who plays for La Coruña in the Spanish league. Inexplicably, El Vasco took out Guardado in the 2nd half of the Mexico-Uruguay game after Guardado had been playing very well and nearly scored a goal.

4. Not starting Pablo Barrera, another one of Mexico's young stars who formed part of Mexico's under-17 World Cup champion squad.

5. Used 3 separate team captains (Torrado, Cuauhtemoc Blanco, and Rafa Marquez)in 4 games. Utter lunacy. Clearly the captain should have been Rafa Marquez who was arguably Mexico's best player. Cuauhtemoc Blanco, in particular, is 37 years and was evidently in no shape to start a World-cup match. This opened the question as to whether Aguirre was giving "parting gifts" (as many accused him of doing with Garcia Aspe in 2002).

6. Leaving the young Barcelona promising star Jonathan Dos Santos (Giovanni's brother) off the world cup roster. If it's true he lacks experience (at only 20 years old), this was a great missed opportunity for Jonathan to gain experience for future world cups. Interesting Aguirre was criticized by Barcelona and the Spanish press for this decision (the day after his dismissal Barcelona extended Dos Santos contract for two more years and stated they were intent on protecting their "crown jewels" in what many considered to be a slap in the face to Javier Aguirre). What made matters worse is that he decided to cut him only a few days before the start of the world cup, after touring with the team through Europe for the pre-cup friendlies. This strained the mood of many of the remaining players, particularly his brother Giovanni who insiders say was emotionally distraught after the incident.

7. Some other perhaps minor points -- Vasco had a terrible handling with the press and it is said he and the Mexican squad spent an inordinate amount of time filming TV commercials.

The only good thing we can say about Aguirre is that he did accept full responsibility for Mexico's failures and has resigned. Let's hope Mexico's new coach is able to value Mexico's promising youth and is not afraid of putting them on the big stage. The Copa America is right around the corner : ). Some names going around are Marcelo Bielsa, Chepo de la Torre, and Victor Manuel Vucetich, I myself am partial to the latter two.