Comparisons are trending for the Mexican national team, which will face Canada on Tuesday in a friendly match at AT&T Stadium.
For the third time, Javier Aguirre received the call from El Tri to lead it in the 2026 World Cup.
Aguirre led Mexico in the 2002 World Cup in Korea/Japan and the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Those two teams had players with charisma, leadership and quality. The current team, not so much.
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The last two years have been a nightmare for El Tri, which is mired in one of the biggest crises in recent times.
In the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Mexico did not advance beyond the group stage, which had not happened since Argentina 1978.
Later, Mexico was embarrassed twice by the United States in the Concacaf Nations League, and this summer, it had its worst performance in Copa America by not advancing beyond the group stage.
Aguirre is the fourth coach of the Mexican national team in the last two years. Before him, Gerardo Martino, Diego Cocca and Jaime Lozano failed to take Mexico to the next level.
Social media users and analysts on sports TV shows agree that the current generation of Mexican soccer players lacks the quality of those who represented Mexico decades ago.
Aguirre has more than 20 years of experience managing teams in Europe and other parts of the world, and he uses that experience to avoid comparisons.
“The day-to-day life of a soccer player has changed, and what has made it change is this,” Aguirre said, holding a smartphone in his right hand.
Aguirre thinks that the quality of players has decreased because, in this era of immediacy and pressure to stand out on social media, players are more focused on other things than their profession.
“Things have changed a lot, we have to concentrate again on what the game of soccer is,” said Aguirre, 65.
“We have to think that what is truly important are the games and our national emblem. We have to put aside everything else and start concentrating on what our country, our flag, our national team is,” Aguirre said.
Mexican national team players are aware that fans think they don’t have the quality of previous generations.
“We understand everything said about us because we haven’t had good results,” Mexican national team defender Israel Reyes said before yesterday’s practice at AT&T Stadium. “We are working to make things different so that people enjoy watching us play and go home happy.”
Mexico defender Alan Mozo said he prefers not to discuss the controversy over whether national teams of the past were better than those of today.
“I really don’t pay attention to what people say about us,” Mozo said. “We work every day to show who we are and proudly represent our country. In this new stage, we will do everything possible so that the fans feel well-represented.”
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Aguirre understands that today’s players belong to a very different generation than the one he belonged to when he played soccer, and in that sense, he has learned to compromise.
“As a coach, at one point, I got to the point of prohibiting the use of cell phones on my teams. Zero phones at lunch or dinner time, zero phones in the locker room, but I ended up giving up, there’s no way,” said Aguirre, who began his third stint with El Tri on Saturday with a 3-0 win over New Zealand.
“With time, young players will learn what is really important, but the truth is that phones distract them a lot. At lunch, instead of talking about the rival they will play against, they are on their phones watching who knows what,” Aguirre said.
Despite coaching the Mexican national team in a different era from the last time he did so, Aguirre hopes to succeed with the players he is preparing to face in the 2026 World Cup.
“I believe that there is quality and capacity,” Aguirre said. “I have been tough, I have been direct, I have been honest with my players in the sense of what I expect from them.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-09 14:01:00
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