PBP: 2024 Copa America Opponent's Watch.

Watching Mex - Uruguay

Uruguay is missing a couple of their big names in valverde and Araujo. Mexico has a lot of names im not familiar with, but it seems like Lozano is turning their roster over, so I’m not sure if this is close to their a team or not.
Uruguay up 1-0 in the 17th minute, but Mexico had a shot off the post. Both sides have looked a bit sloppy in defense.

 

Uruguay splits Mexico open for a Pellistri goal. Poor defense all around. Easy goal.

 

3-0 Uruguay. Nunez with his second goal. They’ve been sloppy trying to play out of the back, but they are humiliating Mexico every time they get into the attacking third.

 

Man, Mexico no bueno.

 

At most 3-4 starters on the pitch for Mexico. Probably more like 2. Still, that was a horrible half from them.

 

You’re probably right but I question what Lozano is doing by not playing his starters. They only have one more friendly before the Copa America. I’d want most of my main guys getting minutes now if I were him.

Uruguay scores again. 4-0. Nunez hat trick.

this is horrible for team and fan morale.

 

Boos raining down in Denver.

 

Game stopped presumably due to chant. My Spanish is not that great and I’m watching on Univision. Romo, Vega and Antuna coming on.

 

Nunez coming off injured. That will be something to pay attention to. I hope it’s not serious though.

 

welp, Mexico still in shambles with no recovery in sight. Interesting seeing Lozano go back to his Edson at center back so that Romo can play the 6 idea. I think the likelihood that he is let go after this tournament is very high.

 

After a certain amount of cycling through coaches they might just stumble onto the though their talent isn't very good right now. They are also hampered by their past where a coach can't just set them up the best way to win they have to play "their" way. They need a Dunga to change that.

 

I think the federation is mostly aware of this. They cannot be complete idiots. The problem is the fan base is in total denial. They keep thinking its just random results, hell they won Gold Cup '23, they made finals in '21, they made NL final in '24, it's just randomness, no it isn't. El Tri hasn't been consistently scary since that 2000-2010 era, and a small window in '17-'18 (even Gold Cup '15, was lost to Panama, but won via corruption or incompetence, and at Copa America '16 they were totally humiliated, at WC '18, they were fantastic for two games, then ---- their pants in the next two).

It's been bad since probably '15, and if you consider qualifying in '13, horrible, and the fact that they tied the worst US ever at home, and needed a late winner away to take 4 points from us at our very worst in '17? The signs that they are horrible have been around for more than a decade. It's just gotten much, much, much worse the past 3 years.

 

I don’t know, man. The truth can be a bitter pill to swallow for some folks. And even for some who realize that the talent is down, I’m sure many would say, “we should at least not lose 4-0, therefore we need a new coach”. There’s some truth in that, but it ultimately doesn’t matter, and ignores the positives (winning the gold cup last year).

 

Uruguay has a population of 3.4 million, Mexico 129 million. Uruguay must be the most efficient producer of soccer players in the world.

 

That has been true for 100 years now.

They have 4 stars for a reason.

 

The problem is that they are already on their second coach this cycle. So they can fire him and grab another ... and then fire him.

I don't know much about Lozano, so maybe it's no big deal, but at some point, you are going to hire someone worse because you won't acknowledge the other issues.

The bigger issue for Mexico is that they likely need a strategy change at the high level and I don't think the people in power want that. USSF took a long term, development-driven focus years ago even as they tried to fancy fix in Klinsmann, and it paid off a decade-plus later.

Mexican pro teams have largely, aside from Pachuca, abandoned development. The teams with money don't do it, and the ones that should don't have the cash, presumably.

 

You would think that would work itself out with the poor teams developing players for the rich teams but it hasn't happened. I think that ill fated decision to stop promotion relegation hurt them a lot. Maybe the players they got would come up with promoted teams, they'd eventually get sold to the top teams and sink and another would pop up. Just a guess.

 

I think the pro/rel decision was long past the problem.

The biggest issue Mexican soccer has, frankly, is that the Big 4 or so both have their own media deals/don't equally share and control LigaMX and the federation both.

The revenue disparity in Mexican soccer is massive, much more so than Spain, where Barca and Madrid get a bigger cut but still there's plenty of trickle down. In MLS or the EPL, every team gets an equal cut of the media deal, which helps to mitigate gameday revenue disparity. In many countries, some of that revenue even gets cascaded down to lower leagues.

These clubs aren't making it along on player sales; Watford can stay in the EPL because people watch Arsenal.

I don't know the exact sharing rules, but it's not equal in Mexico. They killed pro/rel not because the top teams were afraid of getting relegated but because there were no teams in the second division who really wanted to get promoted. That, of course, was driven by the greed of the big teams, but these clubs couldn't ramp up to compete without that media cut.

Player sales are not reliable enough to spur investment (and frankly, deals within Mexico aren't that lucrative as there aren't that many buyers). To get a less capitalized team to spend, you need a guarantee of future revenues.

I'm sure there's other issues, functionally. It's still too big a country with too strong a culture to struggle this much. But the economics of Mexican soccer are the worst of both European and North American models -- the top heavy domination of Europe with any of the cultural/socialist dynamics.

 

The core of their development has to come from their own league. Yet as I follow the threads about youth dual internationals, they seem awfully reliant on young players from MLS that can’t quite make it for the US youth teams.

That would be one thing if our youth teams were dominating at the international level, like Mexico’s period where they won a gold medal and also a youth championship. But our teams are not.

 

Though two of those stars were not World Cups and they haven’t won it since 1950.

But they are very good at producing top tier players. The main issue is their population limits their depth in terms of having enough across the roster to win a World Cup.

 

I just commented on Twitter that the USMNT didn't simply "play youth" but answered the question "Who will be our players the next time we play at the level we want?" and that Mexico didn't appear to understand that. Of course, to do that, it appears that Mexico might have to put 8 year olds on the field.

 

I would say Uruguay are a real contender in 2 years. Their roster probably looks better than Argentina's roster in 2022. They just don't have a Messi.

 

Canada also about to lineup against the Netherlands

As expected, Jesse Marsch really putting his stamp on his first #CanMNT team:

Alphonso Davies captains the team for the first time.

Derek Cornelius and Moise Bombito the new centre-backs.

Dayne St. Clair gets a chance to compete for the starting goalkeeper spot. https://t.co/QW7CBYKILE

— Joshua Kloke (@joshuakloke) June 6, 2024