This is why I was kinda rooting against Canada, some of their fans were getting really annoying. They have a little success in qualifying and started acting like they were the kings of CONCACAF and were going to be for years to come. They're legit for sure, but I was happy to see them get brought down a notch.
Getting knocked out of the World Cup like this can be a good thing if it leads to Mexico addressing some of the underlying issues that they face. I’ll be curious as to who they hire next and whether it’s a domestic coach. There will be a ton of turnover on their team next cycle and I’m not quite sure the next generation is up to par.
That's the thing though, they're not THAT legit. They have a few really good players and some decent pieces around them, but that's basically the bare minimum for WC qualification. They overestimated how much it would translate onto the bigger stage. Our pieces weren't always clicking in WCQ, but it was pretty clear just from the names on the team sheet that we had a much higher ceiling. There's not a manager alive who would trade our squad for Canada's.
Regional tournaments are also a different animal. Their correlation with the World Cup is nearly non-existent. Some teams do far too well in regional competitions, no matter their real World Cup form: Egypt, Peru, Iraq, Greece, etc. tend to do well in them. The current Asian champ is Qatar. I have no idea why they are so different, even if playing with similar rosters. A slightly longer recovery time? The players giving less importance to the competition? Something else?
Wait... you're replying to a post of mine but that post doesn't contain the text you quoted. I don't think I've ever written that, actually.
I think two things could be true w/him. 1.)He was stubborn, and fixated on using vets, and not risking things w/younger players to a fault, and would not take the risk of rebooting w/younger talent when the team performed so ---- in the NL/Gold Cup window (whatever anyone says, in that window they played a stinker just like us, against Costa Rica in the semi's, and in the Gold Cup they looked like crap for long stretches despite taking the bulk of their best team, tying T&T, struggling to beat El Salvador, outplayed against Canada and only avoided penalties due to their fans stupid chant, and then lost to a US team that featured only 1 of 10 players who actually made our World Cup team.....Why on earth would he look at that and think it was good enough? Why would he be so risk averse? The performance in all but a handful of games was so bad it was obvious he needed to mix things up dramatically. 2.) I think he felt that El Tri fans didn't understand that "this was what the team is", and that he was frustrated w/the fans, and with the situation himself, that while Canada and the US grew in leaps and bounds from 2018 or '19 when he came in through 2022, Mexico was stagnant, and probably, regressing, and that the fans didn't recognize that the program, and the pool are simply not nearly as good as it was 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago while Canada and the US have gotten far, far, far better. That's my feeling. But I still think there's a ton he could have done to change this outcome, and it may not have worked but it was worth trying. This was a stagnant attack for literally the past two years. Getting more adventurous with Lainez and Santi Gimenez, even rolling the dice with a Flores, bringing in Araujo though defense wasn't the problem for the most part....Just superficially, I can see some things, why he was so unwilling to roll the dice more on youth especially when it became obvious that there was a problem just boggles my mind.
I think a lot of people overrated a bit Herdman as a coach too. Credit for him getting players to run through a wall but on the big stage you don't have the elements they had in qualifying nor can you really rely purely on one World Class player to carry your team. As for Mexico... this was coming for awhile. They needed an infusion of youth and that's just not Tata's style (Michael Parkhurst who played for Tata at Atlanta even said he thinks Tata stunted Miles Robinson's growth early for that reason). As we learned after the last cycle sometimes you just need to tear the bandaid off and start over. We were forced to due to missing the world cup. Mexico needs to do the same
It'll be interesting. The USSF made some changes post-Couva, but it really isn't the things that got this team back to where it was. Most of the player development stuff was done far, far earlier, and the shift to MLS playing and selling younger players probably wasn't that influenced by USSF. We have more of a program now, more headcount, more soccer people in charge, but we have more talent mostly because of work that started a decade + ago. Mexico's issues are more problematic. For all the talk about MLS/USSF, Mexico has a much bigger issue. LigaMX is a huge cash cow for certain owners, and there's no real desire or incentive to push the league forward like MLS has in their business plan. MLS and USSF's interests are long term aligned -- player development and sale is a core growth strategy. For LigaMX ... they seem a bit motivated by falling behind MLS, but it's not clear they are going to react by driving player development. People get annoyed by MLS' closed nature, but LigaMX is smaller and more closed --there's little reason for a lower level team to invest at all in LigaMX it seems while in the US, USL teams are building academies along with MLS. From all accounts, the heads of the top LigaMX teams actually do run the FMF as well. USSF and MLS are partners, but despite all the talk, Garber's not giving orders. From most Mexican fans I talk to, it sounds like America, Chivas, etc., are basically a board that the FMF reports to, along with the television networks. Maybe that's the equivalent of the SUM crazies here, but it definitely seems like there's a more solid inertia to push back on. USSF may have been incompetent but I think they always wanted to win. And as we've seen, there's a mechanism there for the players and the state associations, the youth leagues and amateurs and so on to push back. I'm not sure FMF governance requires that kind of consensus.
Not sure how seeding for 2026 will work, but it can only help that the World Cup has an in-world basis to distinguish the US from Canada and Mexico. Like if only one host goes in pot 1 . . . .
We'll see, outside of the big UEFA sides, and Brazil and Argentina, Mexico has a population base, passion for the sport, and organizational infrastructure to rival the size and power of any other country on earth. They can at least potentially become great. Physical limitations that Suy mentioned, are real, for now anyway (I am curious if they can attack that problem by recruiting taller dual nats from the US? We'll see) but there are ways to artificially address it over time. Anyway, my argument is that El Tri can become great again because of the vast population, passion for the sport, and infrastructure for the sport. They have everything in place to be a legit top 12 side in the world as they generally were from 1994-2018, for me, that might not be a tier 1 top 8 side, but it's a legit good side.
Agree. This is their 2018, without the injuries, bad luck, etc. Tata didn't want that -- he had no interest in a rebuilding cycle or taking a young team for the future or whatever. He knew he had a bit of a dog, and did the best he could without going the extra mile, I'm sure, but certainly the lack of confidence in the talent shone through. A more invested coach gets more out of them. A longer term coach plays more of the youth. Tata was neither.
It's money too. Mexico would need to invest a lot of money to update their academy system, and that money has to come from somewhere. Business people in Mexico are not going to take the plunge there when a similar investment the other side of the border is going to produce better results, financially.
Herdman's a good coach with a haircut like 20 years too young for him. But USMNT fans made him out to be something special pretty much entirely as an implicit criticism of Berhalter. He's a great motivator. I don't think there's anything special about his tactics in general. He had a lot more clarity and less options in his player pool in that respect. His team overperformed a bit in qualifying, and part of that was simply that if you are going to 3-4 really good players, make sure they are in attack and goal. That said, Canada is out of this World Cup because of him. He got a bit cocky after the Belgium match, thinking the team was that good and not that Belgium look a step slow. Not getting a point was bad luck, but playing super aggressive against Croatia, even after getting an early goal was a poor choice. You don't shut it down, but you certainly don't let them get numbers and get strung out like they did. Croatia's really good, but a less naive coach probably pulls out a 1-1 draw or maybe even gets lucky and is playing for something in game 3. I like Canada's talent and they have some young guys. I don't really expect by 2026 they are going to be ready for some master tactician, so I don't really know how much value there is in moving on from him. The #1 question is the same question for Berhalter: what's the chance this team is still motivated and feeling challenged and fresh in the summer of 2026? Tactical continuity is really nice -- there's lots of teams that overperform by having that cohesion. But if the players are stagnant, there's not much you can do.
Canada basically were robbed against Belgium. They dominated that game far more than we dominated Germany in '02 when we got hosed. They were excellent, and 100% deserved at least a draw in it, and much more likely a win. For all the ----ing on Canada. They were FAR BETTER than Belgium on Matchday 1 and ---- the bed on matchday 2. They actually have the most complete performance of a concacaf team in the world cup alongside our performance against Canada, in that loss. People are burying Canada right now and Herdman, but lets be honest. Canada 100% should be on 3 points after 2 games. They should've been at real risk of crashing out because they'd be -1 or -2 or whatever in GD. The only reason they aren't on 3 points is because they were monstrously unlucky and probably robbed of at least one other PK. People want to crap on them for a ---- show against Croatia, so be it, they imploded in that game (the early goal probably hurt them to be honest), but I don't think ANYTHING is wrong with Herdman. They landed in a murderously tough group and got beat by a team that owned Denmark and France in Nations League and made the WC Final in 2018, beating England in the process. No sin in that AT ALL. The burying of Canada is annoying as hell. They're a great team that's played basically one bad competitive game since what, 2019. Its ridiculous.
There's usually a bit more correlation with the Euros though. France was the runner up in the lead up to the 2018 World Cup. Spain won in 2008 in the lead up to the 2010 World Cup and followed that by winning 2012 (though they flamed out two years later in the World Cup when their core got old). The point is I wouldn't write off Italy quite yet based on losing a single game that caused them not to qualify.
People are burying Canada because their fans got all cocky. The game against Belgium was great, but Herdman's gameplan was naive against Croatia. They should have at least tied Belgium, but you can't plan for game 2 as if you have points you should have gotten. He'll learn. I think he's a good coach. I just get tired of people deifying him because he's not Berhalter.
I'm with you, Mexico has some hard core fans that travel well to support the team through the good and bad. That's great to have. Heck, most countries would love to have that for them. But having those rabid fans is also a curse. The fans will travel no matter how bad the team is doing. You really think the Mexican federation cares about how well the team does? No, all they care about is the $$$. All this crap will pass. The anger the fans felt today will pass. There will be excuses as to why the team didn't advance. Stop attending games. Stop buying the gear. Stop putting $$$ in their pockets.
Thing with Mex is per usual they have some decent young talent in Liga MX. But they don't have much young talent in Europe. And the Liga MX to Europe pipeline has somewhat dried up for them while it has increased for the US and Canada. Unlike the US and Canada they are more likely to see a generational turnover next cycle but I'm not seeing that next wave of young talent compared to previous Mex generations. And it would be behind the young US/Can talent already overseas. I thought Lainez was supposed to be the crown jewel of their next generation. As of now he's on a quiet loan at Braga....they don't have anyone 24 and under doing anything of note in a top 5 league. They didn't have a single U23 in Qatar.
Had Mexico gone out on fair play, could that have been some sort of karma for not holding Honduras in 2018 qualification when we turned it around against Panama 4 years earlier? But that late Saudi goal I guess means they'll have to wait for that... Seriously though, Qatar just lost Tunisia, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia in one day... this city's population is going to half tomorrow at least...
Let's consider for a second Mexico's tournament. A loss to Messi and Argentina. A draw against a good Poland team that's probably a fair reflection of the quality of the two teams. A win against a Saudi Arabia team. None of that is a crime against humanity. The difference between the US performance and that of Mexico in the group stage was basically................................England didn't have Lionel Messi. Cuz that Messi goal against Mexico was beautiful. Yes, they conceded another wondergoal at the end. The line between failure and success at the World Cup is so razor thin. On a different day they score 5 against that Saudi Arabia team. How that Saudi team beat Argentina is a mystery for the soccer gods to answer for. Cuz they had virtually nothing for Mexico.
I seem to recall Italy has a decent basketball team as far as Europe goes, so they must have some tall people....fun fact the Dutch are the tallest people in the world. I know a few of them; all 6'5 and up. Great volleyball players.
Well, that was certainly entertaining (watching end of both matches), but it is NOT good for CONCACAF. Much better when Mexico + USA both go through.