With an aging team, Mexico goes to the World Cup to end the curse of the round of 16

If hindsight is worth anything in football, it is safe to say that Mexico will not be eliminated in the group stage of the World Cup in Qatar. But it won’t go beyond the round of 16.

That’s what happened in the last seven tournaments. The team always fell in the first knockout game. On some occasions on penalties (1994, against Bulgaria), on others when victory seemed inevitable (2014, against the Netherlands), when entering the field as favorite (2002, United States) and underdog (2006 and 2010 for Argentina and 2018 for Brazil).

It is not by chance that the phrase “we played like never before, we lost like always” became a buzzword about Mexico in World Cups.

That didn’t stop the team from having memorable moments. Like the victory over Germany in their debut four years ago in Russia. Or the dramatic draw against the Netherlands, which secured qualification in 1998.

Only when it hosted the competition did Mexico go further than that. In 1970 and 1986 it reached the quarterfinals. The first time, it fell to Italy. Then to West Germany.

The sequence of rankings and drops in the octaves could be even longer. The national federation was suspended by FIFA for defrauding documentation of players at the base and prevented from playing in the qualifiers for the 1990 World Cup.

In Qatar, Mexico arrives with an experienced squad. There will be two players who will compete in the World Cup for the fifth time: goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa, 37, and full-back Andrés Guardado, 36.

Ochoa’s defenses were responsible for the 0-0 draw with Brazil in the group stage in 2014.

The coach will be Argentine Gerardo “Tata” Martino who, despite the group’s experience, did little to hide his displeasure with the country’s leaders. According to him, there were no friendly matches against opponents from different football schools so that he could test his team before the trip to Qatar.

“As they place us matches within the zone [da Concacaf, a federação do Caribe e da América Central e do Norte], I feel that the other teams continue to grow and we don’t. The others grow, we say that permanently, but we have reached a level where we need to play against Holland, Japan, Algeria, Wales”, he said, in an interview with the TUDN channel.

Mexico have not won a tournament since the 2019 Gold Cup, the team’s longest fast in 15 years.

Martino still has doubts about assembling the starting lineup. If the midfield duo seems to be defined with Héctor Herrera (from Houston Dynamo-USA) and Edson Álvarez (Ajax-HOL), there are some possibilities for the most offensive midfielder. The options are Erick Gutierrez (PSV-HOL) and Carlos Rodríguez (Cruz Azul-MEX).

In the attacking trio, Hirving Lozano is one of those responsible for Napoli’s great campaign in the current Italian Championship and Jesús Corona (Sevilla-ESP) is another right name at the tip. The favorite seemed to be Raúl Jiménez (Wolverhampton-ING), but since he suffered a fractured skull in 2020, he hasn’t been able to show the same football. One of the alternatives is the Argentine naturalized Mexican Rogelio Funes Mori (Monterrey).

Mexico are in Group C and make their debut against Poland on November 22. Argentina and Saudi Arabia are also in the draw.