“I want to do things differently than what’s typical in Mexico,” Jaime Lozano said in a suite at AT&T Stadium in Dallas earlier this month.
The 45-year-old Mexico manager spoke to The Athletic ahead of the CONCACAF Nations League semifinals. Mexico will face Panama on Thursday while the United States, the two-time defending champions, meets Jamaica.
Asked how the team will evolve stylistically under his direction, Lozano said that Mexico’s football should be “positive and happy.”
Following Mexico’s failure at the World Cup in Qatar under head coach Gerardo Martino, and the team’s struggles in its region during the short-lived tenure of Diego Cocca, the mentality of the Mexican players has been questioned. Mexico teams of the past were known for their fighting spirit. Lozano will be expected to reinstall that culture within this group.
“For me, the most important thing is for each player to understand what it means to wear the Mexican national team shirt, and what’s at stake every time they do so,” said Lozano. “We have fans everywhere but especially in the U.S., where we play the most. They go through a lot to see their national team play. The least we can do is give everything. Put our lives on the line on every play and in every game in order to bring our fans joy.”
Mexico exited the 2022 World Cup in the group stage. (Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)
Lozano is a motivator, but his tone resembles that of a college professor, which suits the studious former Pumas and Mexico left fullback. He’s an admirer of coaching courses that go beyond the tactics of the game. Lozano and his staff recently visited several of Mexico’s Europe-based players and met with technical directors and coaches of European sides PSV Eindhoven and Bayer Leverkusen, among others.
Lozano met with Leverkusen’s manager Xabi Alonso, Europe’s most in-demand coach. He walked away convinced that his approach to football management, one that’s centered on teaching rather than leading, would lead to positive dividends for Mexico.
“Coaches like Xabi Alonso or Pep Guardiola, they’re constantly developing players,” said Lozano. “People think that once you get to the elite level the players will know everything, or at least they should. Those coaches approach everything like a teacher, the way it should be, to make the player better. Xabi Alonso knows exactly what he wants from each one of his players, but he’s always willing to teach you something new to make you a better player.”
There are realities to being a national team head coach that Lozano has had to adjust to. “There’s a lot of office work and very little work on the pitch,” said Lozano, who sees himself as a formador, which translates literally to “trainer” or “instructor.” In the world of football, formador is a developer of talent. Lozano recently completed a public speaking course that focused on the psychology of communication habits.
“Knowing how to communicate a message is so important,” Lozano said. “You may understand it but it’s far more important for that message to land with the player exactly the way you want it to. I’ve taken several courses that I know will help me. You’re a doctor, a father, a psychologist, a brother, a friend, an enemy — you’re everything to a player.”
Lozano was named head coach of the Mexico national team in August of last year. “I dreamed about being in this role,” he said, thinking back on his arrival.
He began as the interim manager shortly before last summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup, after Cocca was fired seven games into his tenure. Cocca, 52, was dismissed four days after Mexico lost 3-0 to the United States in the 2023 Nations League semifinal.
Lozano then led Mexico to last summer’s Gold Cup title over Panama. That won him the permanent job, but Mexico’s 12th Gold Cup trophy did little to erase the embarrassment that Mexico endured at the 2022 World Cup. Mexico was eliminated in the group stage for the first time since 1978. Then head coach Martino, 61, resigned immediately after Mexico’s 2-1 win over Saudi Arabia. After Martino stepped down, calls for the national team to be managed by a Mexican grew louder.
Mexico had not had a Mexican-born coach since Miguel Herrera’s two-year stint from 2013-2015. Both Cocca and Martino were Argentine coaches who were largely blamed for Mexico’s precipitous demise. Still, the well-spoken Lozano is far less experienced than each of the aforementioned coaches. Lozano’s only opportunities as a first-team coach came with Querétaro in 2017 and most recently with Necaxa in 2022. Lozano was fired from the Querétaro job and later resigned as manager of Necaxa. Both spells lasted less than 40 matches.
Based on Lozano’s track record, it was justified to question his appointment as Mexico manager. Lozano has had the most success with academy-age players. First with Querétaro’s U-20s at the start of his coaching career, then Lozano led Mexico’s men’s U-23 squad to the bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. For Lozano, the dominoes began to fall in his favor. That included Mexico’s disastrous World Cup in 2022 and a recent lack of success at the youth level. After Cocca lost the Mexico dressing room last summer — one that was made up of several players whom Lozano had coached in Tokyo, he was suddenly considered the best man for the job.
Lozano smiles when asked about the whirlwind that landed him in the hottest seat in Mexico, before laying out exactly how he sold himself as Mexico’s unlikely savior.
“After the Olympics, knowing that those players were going to be an important part of the foundation for the next World Cup at home, knowing that it’s been a long time since we’ve had a Mexican coach in this role when I knew that Gerardo Martino wasn’t going to continue, my intention was to become the next head coach,” Lozano said. “I had already spent two-and-half years with some of these players. I didn’t want to start from scratch. We had that foundation, plus another three and a half years before the (2026) World Cup. So it’s like a six-year cycle. And now, it’s about staying and creating more hope for what lies ahead.”
In his first tournament in charge, Lozano led Mexico to a Gold Cup title. (Photo by Michael Janosz/ISI Photos/Getty Images).
The Mexican Football Federation (FMF) is betting on Lozano’s close relationship with Mexico’s current group of players. The senior national team was under immense negative pressure in the final years of the Martino era. Even though a number of the players had backed Martino publicly, a rash of poor results, namely three consecutive losses to the U.S., plunged the program into despair. In Mexico, the press and the fans attacked Martino’s tactics, man-management, and his nationality.
Lozano spoke highly of Martino and the relationship that they had during the Argentine’s time as national team manager. On the surface, Martino’s run in Mexico is deemed a failure by almost every standard. But Lozano was behind the scenes as coach of Mexico’s U-23s. He met with Martino and his staff nearly every day at Mexico’s national team training facility in Mexico City. There was a lot of value in the conversations Lozano and Martino had regarding Mexico’s player pool, or on the rigors and responsibilities that a Mexico national team coach endures.
“I asked (Martino) about everything,” Lozano said. “I wanted to learn. I enjoy that. I want to learn from other people’s experiences and try to avoid committing the same mistakes. I also want to build upon all the positive things that Martino and his staff put in place.”
Lozano is past the honeymoon stage. Pundits in Mexico have begun to poke holes in his ability to lead the senior national team. His inexperience is an easy target. Lozano is widely well-liked by the Mexican media, but results rule in international football. He already looked that reality in the eye last fall. Mexico needed a penalty shootout win over Honduras in the Nations League quarterfinals to advance to this summer’s Copa América as one of six invited nations from CONCACAF.
Previously, Mexico’s dour 3-3 draw in a friendly versus Uzbekistan last September did little to convince Mexicans that the national team had recovered from the pain of the 2022 World Cup. This new edition of the Nations League competition has opened the door to the traditional hypotheticals that always surround the job of Mexico’s manager.
“Lozano is sitting on a barrel of fireworks,” said MedioTiempo columnist and TUDN analyst Paco Arredondo last week. “There’s a constant pondering about what Lozano can accomplish with Mexico. If he doesn’t win the (Nations League) final, his job will begin to teeter.”
(Photo by Omar Vega/Getty Images)
Barring a horrendously embarrassing result in Dallas, Lozano should be safe. Even a hard-fought loss to the U.S., if both teams advance to the final, won’t lead to Lozano’s dismissal. Lozano was signed to lead the squad toward the 2026 World Cup. It’s a long-term project that Lozano understands can be easily derailed if one listens or reads too much social media.
“I know that pressure existed before I got here and it will persist when it’s time for me to leave,” said Lozano. “I have to absorb and only listen to what’s necessary. If not, you’ll go crazy. It helps that I don’t use social media very often. You can hear things that are not convenient.”
The noise that Lozano is referring to, from both fans and sports reporters, are “just opinions” that come from an emotional place, he said. Lozano added that a deeper form of analysis is often missing from football punditry in Mexico.
“You’re going to be exposed to opinions and criticisms whenever the results do not meet the expectations of the press, or in this case, of the fans. People are going to be upset and that causes a natural bit of pressure on us. It’s not ideal but it’s normal. The way I see it, the scrutiny is focused on the position and not on the person. I want to win too, but it doesn’t always happen the way you want.”
In the meantime, the FMF looks to be fully behind Lozano. How Mexico fares at Nations League final four and this summer’s Copa América will determine the success and longevity of the Lozano experiment.
As a player, Lozano missed out on the 2006 World Cup with Mexico through injury, but he now stands as the nation’s unlikely leader when the tournament returns to North America. Mexico will co-host the 2026 World Cup with the U.S. and Canada.
But there’s no guarantee that Lozano will be wearing a Mexico track jacket in two years.
“Let’s hope that happens,” Lozano said. “That’s why we’re working so hard each day, so that 20 years later we can fulfill a dream and make all of Mexico happy
(Photo: Omar Vega/Getty Images)
Source link : https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5356669/2024/03/20/mexico-nations-league-jaime-lozano/
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Publish date : 2024-03-20 03:00:00
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