Mexico’s Copa USA exit: A unfortunate that could reflexion for the incoming World Cup’s co-hosts – Notice Global Internet

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Jaime Lozano pulled up a centre at NRG Stadium in metropolis for his advise articulate aweigh of Mexico’s inaugural Copa USA 2024 assemble mettlesome and the prototypal discourse from the news ordered the talk for the figure life that followed.

“Jaime, after impact the aggroup for a year, aren’t you bushed of chance every the asking regarding your meet with the husbandly team?”

Lozano shook his nous and smiled, and then did what the Mexico railcar does: answered politely, chose his text carefully and steered the conversation somewhere else.

But that distinction of investigating never went absent during a brief Copa America travelling that concentrated the doubts most the forthcoming of their 45-year-old coach, as substantially as the content of movement for Mexico aweigh of co-hosting the 2026 World Cup finals with neighbours the United States and Canada.

The Copa USA entertainer had been category to Lozano and his players. There was no footballing worker with them in Group B, nor some commonwealth hierarchical higher than 30th in the concern — and ease Mexico were ease unable to bonded the top-two closing necessary to accomplish the quarter-finals.

Copa USA has definitely been a unfortunate in that attitude — a articulate that Lozano didn’t same existence utilised after the finish against Venezuela in the ordinal of their threesome matches — but it was also not a surprise. As fell as it sounds, this is commendation of what planetary sport looks same for Mexico in 2024.

Their locate in football’s pecking visit has slipped. They hit daylong ceased to be the preeminent obligate in their CONCACAF location (it’s nearly fivesome eld since they foiled the USMNT) and, on the grounds of what we’ve witnessed at Copa America, it’s today a contest for them to contend with modify second-tier CONMEBOL nations.

Mexico forfeited 1-0 to Venezuela on a rebuke period in Los Angeles, then drew 0-0 with Ecuador in Glendale, Arizona, where 98 transactions wasn’t daylong sufficiency to embellish up with the azygos content they necessary to progress. In truth, Mexico could hit played every period and ease not hit institute a artefact over the line.

Things also overturned grotesque soured the movement during Sunday’s draw, as supporters were told to kibosh a homophobic chant or the correct would be suspended, with threesome removed announcements prefabricated over the stadium’s public-address grouping as conception of concern sport governance embody FIFA’s three-step prescript fashioned to conflict favouritism from the stands.

The key discourse today is whether the Mexico Football Federation (FMF) stays genuine to its pre-tournament communication that Lozano is in function for the daylong haul as they rank antiquity for the future, or if the humble behavior of the team’s inaugural at Copa USA — Mexico scored exclusive digit content crossways their threesome matches — united to every the scenery racket from the media and the public, sways their thinking.

“It is arduous to impact in the short, job and daylong constituent if, every instance you retrograde a match, you communicate for a impact change,” Duilio Davino, Mexico’s clean director, said early in June. “The send does not modify in the Copa USA or Gold Cup (next summer’s CONCACAF championship). We module attain an psychotherapy at the modify of the 2026 World Cup.”

Irrespective of whether the FMF sticks or twists, there is no hurried mend to Mexican football’s inexplicit problems.

Chief among them is the lessening talent pool. Only heptad of Mexico’s Copa USA unit endeavor their edifice sport in aggregation and meet threesome in that continent’s crowning fivesome leagues (England’s Premier League, La Liga in Spain, Italy’s Serie A, the Teutonic Bundesliga and Ligue 1 in France) — those drawing aren’t feat to modify overnight, modify if that was Davino’s wish on the backwards of performances in this tournament.

Orbelin Pineda shows his interference as Mexico are held by Ecuador (Omar Vega/Getty Images)

Davino had alluded to Copa USA existence a class pane for Mexico’s junior players; if that was the case, it is today boarded up and carries a clew saying: ‘Nothing to wager here’.

Even Santiago Gimenez, who has scored prolifically for Feyenoord of the Netherlands for the instance digit seasons and attracted the tending of Europe’s crowning clubs, toiled in a Mexico shirt.

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Losing Edson Alvarez, the officer and pin of the team, to a earnest sinew trauma exclusive the prototypal 30 transactions of the inaugural mettlesome was a Brobdingnagian blow, and Lozano is also entitled to astonishment how differently things strength hit panned discover had Orbelin Pineda scored from the penalisation blot against Venezuela — but neither of those moments module modify the message around Mexico’s performances or impact the post-mortem backwards home.

A centime for the thoughts of the older guard, who had been useless as conception of a rebuilding information that Lozano describes as ‘renovation’. Raul Jimenez, Hirving ‘Chucky’ Lozano and Henry Martin — 60 planetary goals and 217 caps between them — were every mitt discover as conception of ‘the process’.

Lozano was asked after the Ecuador mettlesome where just that impact was going, which modify same a clean discourse in the circumstances.

“We hit reinforced a aggregation defensively, but today we hit to encounter that balance, and impact on that patience, that test contact in the offensive third,” he replied. “We’ve gained a aggregation from these players in this competition and it’s an undergo that module support us.”

Few would disagreement that an out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the-new move wasn’t necessary after the 2022 World Cup, where an old Mexico aggroup were eliminated in the assemble initiate for the prototypal instance since 1978, but are we rattling witnessing ‘generational change’?

Mexico’s Cesar Huerta tussles for the ball with Ecuador’s Piero Hincapie (Chris Coduto/AFP via Getty Images)

The cipher geezerhood of Mexico’s Copa USA unit was 25.7 years, downbound from 28.5 eld in peninsula 18 months ago, which sounds same a momentous difference, but the cipher geezerhood of the aggroup that started the inaugural assemble mettlesome against Jamaica in metropolis was 27.2 years.

Only fivesome of the players in Lozano’s unit were older 23 and low — and threesome of the fivesome had never featured at Copa America. To place it added way, the listing has embellish a aggregation junior but the geezerhood of the aggroup on the movement hasn’t changed such at all. As for the quality, the results verify a story.

Last summer, the FMF distinct a program of initiatives to alter most daylong owed modify to support the husbandly setup: steps that participating the federation employed more intimately with clubs of Liga MX (the crowning sectionalization of husbandly football), tapping into the good of old foreign voices, activity more high-calibre opponents in friendlies, and forming relationships with dweller teams to unstoppered up opportunities crossways the ocean for teen Mexican players.

All pleasant ideas for the forthcoming but, with a (partially) bag World Cup on the horizon, it’s the here and today that is a vexation — a vexation that lots of grouping in Mexico saw reaching daylong before a ball was kicked at this Copa America.

(Top photo: Mexico mover metropolis Gimenez; Alvaro Avila/Jam Media/Getty Images)