What do these central midfield pairings have in common?: 2012 Chepo: Salcido and Zavala 2010 Aguirre: Torrado and Castro 2006 Lavolpe: Torrado and Castro/Pineda Over the past decade we have had 2 big challenges on tha nationa team. The first was to find a good striker and fortunately, now we have a couple of viable choices. The second, and this one is still a problem and the one thing that is handicapping our team, is the lack of offensive minded centermids. For a long time, this was due to lack of personel, but it now seems that it is more of a tactical decision than anything else. We always play with 2 defensive holding mids in the middle who´s primary job is to defend and who lack the skill to attack with the ball. This leads to a need to attack down the sides with our wingers and our fullbacks making runs up the field. This also put a lot of pressure on the forward playing behind our striker (in this case Gio) because he must come back to the ball and cover a huge area. If I were playing Mexico, I would tell my midfielders to spread to crowd the flanks and force the center mids to make plays. We rely too much on creating down the wings and this is handicapping our team. Don´t get me wrong, I am not saying that we should play with two attackers in the middle of the field, but we should at least have one holding defensive mid and one attacking mid able to create in the middle. It is no coincidence that our only created goal against El Salvador came when our midfielder took advantage of the gap in the middle and moved up the field. I think Zavala is great, but he is clearly more of a holding mid than an attacker. Salcido cannot touch the ball and this should eliminate him from playing this position, but for some reason, Mexican coaches do not see it that way. Think back to the Toulon tourmanent and the way Herrera played and try to think of a center midfielder that pushes forward as much as him on the men´s team. I can´t think of one CM that played like that on the men´s team in the past decade. We currently have 2 players that can play this role, Herrera and Jonathan, and Chepo not calling Jona up demostrates that this might be more of a tactical decision than a personel decision. Zavala is a lock on this team, as the holding defensive mid, but we need Jona or Herrera beside him ASAP.
In 2006, Mexico played with only 1 DM, and it was predominantly Pavel Pardo. But your point is well taken. Mexico needs one of those classic box-to-box guys. Leandro Agusto was supposed to be that guy for SGE. Unfortunately for SGE, it was 2009 and not 2004, when Leandro was probably the best true midfielder in the league. Leandro just wasn't the same guy. Vasco used a 4-3-3 with 3 d mids, but the way the played offensively - the wingbacks would push up, and the center dmid would drop back to form a 3-man line with the central defenders. It was up to Juarez and Torrado to be the box to box guys. They handled the defensive chores fine, but were limited offensively (which made Guardado's exclusion even more puzzling). Curious to see how Hugo uses Herrera to see if he lets him push up the way he does for the National team. Jona will be on Barcelona's 1st team next season, and, frankly, could not ask to be in a better place to learn how to take control of a midfield. But how much PT is he going to get? I don't mind Salcido so much, he is a glue guy, and a very forceful leader. A lot of people get hung up with what he doesn't do with the ball. Someone needs to get the ball back, and Salcido does a great job. Those same people also complained bitterly about the Castro/Torrado pairing last year. All they did was rip apart their opponents in the Gold Cup, the US included. I watched them shred Costa Rica - it was an awesome performance. What I would also like to see in addition is a rotation of the two outside midfielders and the forward. That would help Mexico be less predictable when they mount attacks and counter attacks.
Going off my memory which is a bit hazy but if we go back further we find Garcia Aspe & Marcelina Bernal & Nacho Ambriz also playing in the midfield. At least all three of them had midfield cannons. Its not just tactical as players like Herrera and JDS are new from what I remember at least. If you look at the league you probably find more players like Aspe and Ambriz then you would the latter two so it makes sense. What's good for the gander good for the goose type of situation. I actually find it promising Zavala is included and Herrerra had all that freedom in Toulon because he had arguably the best Dmid in that age group covering his ass.
The biggest issue i have with salcido is that he just doesn't have the legs to be a midfield man anymore...at least HIS interpretation of a midfield man. I think that lot of salcido's game consisted of his work ethic and his speed. When you have a guy that works hard and doesn't have the legs anymore in the midifeld you basically get the gattuso-esque player, and sadly not the guy that was a pitbull in his prime but the current manifestation his way out of futbol. John pointed out that someone has to get the ball back.....but have you noticed hes struggled with the faster players. I noticed that was leading to a lot of semi late challenges, and we cant be having those in the midfield when you also have zavala who plays on the edge alot. Also he likes to do too much, which puts him out of position more than often and puts us in counter positions because he cant make the recoridos anymore like he did before. I think we need a slightly more offensive mid that doesn't neglect his defensive duties as much....who? your guess is good as mine (hopefully Herrera grows into that, but hes still unproven on the senior squad)
Juarez was the first manifestation of a box to box mid in recent times. Aguirre rarely, if ever, used him as a RB and IMO, put him in a position to succeed. I also don't think Guardado deserved to start over Juarez during the WC and even though we played with three midfielders, not all of them had the same tasks. Rafa was the holding mid, Torrado the defensive mid and Juarez the box to box. Guardado near the flanks is useless and has proven so time and time again over the last five years. Guardado's best games under Eriksson and Chepo coincided with the removal of a dmid and Guardado shifting to the center to the offensive center mid. In order for him to be successful as a winger, a number of things have to click and that isn't often. The LB has to make smart runs up the wing and the forwards need to move a lot in order to create space for Guardado to move inside in diagonal runs. The fact that our attack has been mainly wing based is nothing new, it happened under SGE, Aguirre and even Hugo, not to mention Chepo. Those of you who saw the Copa America squad last year know it was a beauty to see Jona and Cabrera threading balls to Fabian while Chaton shielded the defense. Those guys along with Herrera and Reyes.... hmmm dat midfield
They played a number of friendlies prior to the scandal in which Jona and Cabrera lined up with Enriquez in a three man midfield. Yo vi esos partidos y me imagino que tu tambien, no?
Not sure if this is the biggest problem we need to solve, but Martín does a good job of discussing one of our problems: Se buscan líderes en el Tri
Beat Ecuador and Bolivia 1-0 at home. And tied Colombia at home. Thats why I genuinely thought we'd be a factor in the copa america with Vela, Cortes, Fabian, Cabrera and JDS. Then Vela wasn't allowed to come and the whole prostrigate scandal.
The ability to make a good play but not finish it off, 442 line up, the ability to send decent crosses to goal, and find a consistent goal scorer
Torrado was there but he wasn't a big part of the Lavolpe era, if anything I don't think Lavolpe liked him he would rather go with the likes of Luis Perez. Not talking about the world cup I'm talking about the other 3 years of torture I had to endure with that douche as Mexico manager.
The biggest problem is there has not been a tandem to dominate the way Castro and Torrado would. What was their consecutive games without losing streak again?