Mexico beat T&T 3-1 and Finishes 2nd in Group A behind Colombia. Medal round will commence on Wednesday July 22. Mexico will most likely face Brazil as they are top of their group with a +9 GD. Colombia awaits today's results to see if they play Costa Rica or Canada.
3rd place match between Mexico and Canada tonight at 8:30pm eastern. Mexico losing their semifinal match to Brazil 4-2 and Canada getting outplayed by Colombia 1-0 in the other match. It's a winnable game as this Canadian team is very weak losing matches to Brazil and Costa Rica and only advancing thanks to a 5-2 beatdown against Ecuador.
No idea, but good question. On the Canada twitter they are saying that it's a young squad, so probably not many from the World Cup. Here's their starting line-up: Labbé (GK); Quinn, Stewart, Buchanan, McNicoll; Fleming, Lawrence, Stratigakis, Carle; Fletche, Beckie. Here's who started for us:
Funny how in the last few games, Cuellar has put Rangel up front and move for a flat 4 defense. At least he is experimenting. No full backs so no Kenti at all.
FT Mexico 2 - 1 Canada U-20. Bronze medal for Mexico. I don't know whether to feel good or bad about this result. Cuellar tried some weird shit here using a lot of the old players including 30+ yr olds like Ruiz and Tajonar who hardly played at the WC. Then you have Rangel moved up as a striker which worked, bagged in a couple of goals in the tournament. Definitely played a lot better than being a holding midfielder like they are making her out to be.
Just like 2011.. We also lost to Brazil in that semifinal as well, we just can't beat them in the Pan American games.
Good result and by fielding older players maybe Cuellar was looking to keep his job. And it may have worked. Kind of difficult to ask for his head on a platter when he placed third in this tournament. Mexico gave up gold and silver to Brazil and Colombia (we'll find out tomorrow who gets first and second), no slouches as per their World Cup performances. But, as with the Canada team, not sure how many of the players on those squads were also on their World Cup teams.
Just Buchanan who was a starter and their best defender and Lawrence who was riding bench all WC. I don't know man. The Colombians did not have their best player, Andrade and they still outplayed us. How did a team that mostly plays in the Colombian women's league beat a bunch of players that play in the U.S. and Europe. Dude should get the ax regardless.
Next up for the team is Olympic qualification in January. Unlike the Men's tournament, the women's tournament is full senior squads and is considered a major tournament. Top 2 teams go to Rio, last time in 2012 Mexico failed to qualify. If there's a time to sack Cuellar it's during January. Stay Tuned...
The U.S. nadettes are a guarantee. Canada and maybe Costa Rica are El Tri Femenil's competition for 2nd.
Points I have about the Panamerican games: Canada is solely using this tournament in order to prepare for the U-20 qualifiers hosted at Honduras around November. That's why they didn't bother using the senior squad at all and had a U-20 squad. Still this young group showed promise, they almost tied against Mexico and also had many scoring opportunities through out the game. In fact, it would have been embarrassing if Mexico had lost this game considering they had their WC squad. Mexico hasn't showed progress at all. They couldn't beat a Colombia team without Lady Andrade and Yoreli Rincon. Struggled at times against a very weak Argentina team. Beat T&T (nothing new here). I believe Brazil did in fact take their WC squad to this tournament, thus why Mexico got slaughtered 4-2. Conclusion: Girls play with heart and give it their all but the coach must leave. This is as far as he'll be able to take this team. They'll never get out of the group stage at a WC (if they manage to qualify in the first place) and they won't be making it to the Olympics any time soon (USA and Canada have got those 2 places on lock). Unfortunately, he's too prideful to admit this shite and is now angry that he's finally getting pressured to do a better job because mediocrity is what he was comfortable with. Cuellar needs to leave period. Fack the bronze medal, it means nothing when you evaluate the opponents. Dude needs to leave asap.