Against the Danes, Mexico should find a way to gain
PHOENIX -- Mexico will try to work miracles when they face Denmark on Wednesday. It will mark the only preparation prior to the CONCACAF final hexagonal round of World Cup qualifying a week later.
Insignificant game? No doubt, against Denmark and the B team. The fault lies not with El Tri, but rather with its partnerships. The provider of friendlies for Mexico on U.S. soil, Soccer United Marketing (SUM), seems to care just as much about the quality of rivals for Mexico as about purslane production in the Mojave Desert.
While the Mexican national team draws up a plan to play chess, the promoter of their games in the United States gets them an opponent that has game pieces for Spanish checkers.
El Tri today, it is clear, nullifies its foes, one that arrives without team cohesion and without a consistent record. In other words: this Wednesday, Mexico must make up reasons and circumstances to turn an insipid match into a testing ground.
José Manuel (Chepo) de la Torre has little time to organize a team. Namely:
1.- His presumed best striker, Javier Hernandez, is in Europe, although he is clearly going through a magnificent moment scoring goals and when he does join the national team it will be with a full tank of confidence.
2.- His most talented player down the left flank, Andres Guardado, suffers from an unfavorable castling. His new instruction booklet differs from that of El Tri, and it hasn’t been his best year, especially after Valencia’s 5-0 drubbing by Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey.
3.- Giovani dos Santos scored a superb goal with Mallorca, but his competitive rhythm can be unstable.
4.- The two players who have severed relations with the national team are going through contrasting moments. Carlos Vela is valuable within Real Sociedad, but he already cut the umbilical cord with El Tri. And consider Jonathan dos Santos as the best-paid player in the world: his ratio of salary to minutes played in official games, places him above Samuel Eto’o in terms of salary perspectives.
5.- Hector Moreno holds an advantage: the moments of desperation at Espanyol are so difficult, so stifling, so demanding, that he plays every second at full speed in the fury of his survival instinct in the Spanish Primera Division.
That is why the game should be useful to Chepo despite the rival’s obvious uselessness. With Francisco “Maza” Rodriguez in Mexico, at least he has a backbone to rely on as a starting point, with the addition of Jose de Jesus Corona, Diego Reyes, Hector Herrera, Marco Fabian, Oribe Peralta, and Javier Aquino, recently transferred to Villarreal.
Having ten gold medal winners from London 2012 guarantees one thing for De la Torre: there is game memory, taking into acount that in the end the tactical principles agreed upon by him and Luis Fernando Tena prevail, primarily in the patient and obsessive routine for the ball.
Rafa Ramos writes for ESPNDeportesLosAngeles.com, hosts the popular Raza Deportiva on ESPN Deportes Radio and is a panelist on Juego Cruzado, ESPN Deportes's version of Around The Horn. Check out his Marcador blog, and follow him on Twitter @RafaRamosESPN.
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