#juntoaltri

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Pablo Lopez’s U-17 World Cup

It’s been a week in which the talk in Mexico revolves around the fact that few times we’re able to see U-17ers get their chance in Liga MX, or that at times, teams are imprudent and don’t respect their formative years and throw them to the field, way before the right time. It’s a complex topic in a league that boasts of a self-proclaimed egalitarian attribute that permits it to say that all of the First Division teams have a legitimate shot of winning the title.

But it’s also this attribute that doesn’t understand patience, it doesn’t understand that sometimes it’s not great for results to come by immediately, rather for them to come by slowly, while building from the ground up a project that will allow teams to have a thorough identity.

Mario Arteaga’s U-17 team in Chile is a proof that something in Mexican football is being done in an extraordinary way. The work of several Liga MX clubs, specifically of Pachuca, Chivas, Santos, America, Atlas, and Rayados permits El Tri to take competitive teams to these youth tournaments. It’s true, though, after watching the 2015 U-20 World Cup and U-17 World Cup that the club that has been able to spot top football talent, is Pachuca. Hirving “Chucky” Lozano and Pablo Lopez support the claim.

Watching Lopez in the last two games, against Germany and Chile, has been a huge delight. In the 4-1 win versus Chile, he scored an impressive outside the box goal, and also took the time to pick up an assist. Not only that, but he always appeared in defense, helping out the fullbacks and center backs. Lopez is the type of footballer every coach wishes to have in his starting-eleven. He mixes those skills of genius and hard-work like very few.

The aspects of teamwork this U-17 team transmits are impressive, and it’s the trait that somehow separates it from the the other two U-17 teams “Potro” Gutierrez managed. Of course if this team wants to be remembered, it must at least reach the final as both Potro Gutierrez’s U-17 teams did.

Another note is that the team doesn’t look like one that depends on one player, of course, Lopez, as mentioned in this article, is the standout, but the team has other players who can provide the dynamism when El Tri is in a situation of emergency.

El Tri is two games away from the final, and is probable that Lopez will keep standing out. He elegantly wears the no. 8, a number that is also owned by one of his idols, Andres Iniesta. There’s the key, if he manages to carry himself as Don Andres Iniesta has had during his illustrious career, Lopez will also have a memorable one of his own, and not an inconsistent one as it has been the case for players like Julio Gomez, Ever Guzman, Cesar Villaluz, or even Carlos Fierro.   

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Juan Carlos Osorio and his biggest coaching test

Juan Carlos Osorio observed from the BayArena stands as Chicharito picked up a brace in the match against AS Roma. It was a sublime match. With a memorable score of 4-4, but not so memorable defensive displays.

Let’s not forget that last season, Roma got beaten by Bayern Munich in Rome by a final score of 7-1. This season, Roma drew against FC Barcelona, 1-1, and the crowd in the Italian capital celebrated as if they had seen AS Roma get an unforgettable win.  

Osorio’s trip to Europe has been unexpected. Earlier last week, reports suggested that he was going to head to Sao Paulo to check on his family right after the Toluca-Queretaro match.

You know who impressed that Sunday early afternoon, Esquivel, not so much Cardozo’s tactics, who instead of ordering his team to continue attacking after achieving an early 2-0 lead, he ordered them to defend the lead and rely on the counter. Still, Toluca ended the game with a 4-2 win.  

Back to Osorio. The need for El Tri’s best players to have a good impression of Osorio is equally as important as it is for them to have brilliant performances in Champions League or Europa League. This season, Chicharito and Miguel Layun, certainly know what a good game in Champions League feels like, while Jona has done the same in Europa League with Villarreal CF.

Unfortunately, Hector Herrrera is nowhere near to last season’s version, and it’s not getting any better as the new faces in FC Porto such as André André and Gianelli Imbula keep improving under Julen Lopetegui’s coaching.

Osorio’s lighting trip to Europe demonstrates extreme dedication. After winning the famous CONCACAF Cup, it’s easy to forget about the deplorable 2013 Hexagonal, in which in more than one occasion the participation of El Tri’s players who play Europe was put into question or like they say in Mexico, se pusó en tela de juicio.

They were the easy ones to blame. El Tri’s Euro players were unable to get wins at Azteca against teams like Jamaica and Honduras.

Coaching Mexico’s national team is Osorio’s biggest test, and how big of a test it is when you walk the streets in Mexico City, and when they hear his name most of them they say, Ese quién es?

More than twenty years ago when Cesar Luis Menotti came to Mexico to take over El Tri’s coaching job, Mexico knew who he was. He led Argentina to winning a World Cup in 1978. There was World Cup glory that legitimized his appointment, but with Osorio, the reality is that what gives legitimacy to his appointment is preparation, preparation, and more preparation.

Yes, he triumphed in Colombia, but that’s a whole different story compared to El Tri.

As Osorio is starting to get nonstop coverage in Mexico’s TV networks, just to give you an example, every night Televisa gives a report on Osorio’s Euro tour, not only that but journalist Mauricio Ymay has been able to chat with him every other day, and all of what Osorio does is talk football, nothing else.

When Osorio speaks about the game, it’s beautiful, if you are a true football aficionado, you will pay attention. It’s about tactics, it’s about where Jonathan dos Santos will be placed on the pitch (if he manages to break into his starting-eleven) because Osorio already has a Mexico starting-eleven in mind.

His elaborate note-taking and obsession to detail has allowed him to have a clear-cut drawout of what he wants from Mexico’s national team players. The base is there; it’s just a matter of convincing them of the way he wants them to play. If he manages to impose his football ideas, and the players execute them in CONCACAF play, Mexico will know who Juan Carlos Osorio is, and of course that Ese quién es? will die out.

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Sobredosis concacafkiana

El fútbol mexicano atraviesa una etapa feliz, sin tener una idea clara sobre lo que viene en camino. El Tri le ganó al acérrimo rival en tierras californianas. Es lo que sabemos.  

El equipo del proyecto a largo plazo, el del big picture fue bailado por el de los proyectos abruptos, el de los procesos que duran menos que una temporada completa de béisbol. Pero en esa noche memorable que congeló a la ciudad de Los Ángeles alrededor de un balón comprobó que no todo se está haciendo mal en el fútbol mexicano. Hay señales de fortalecimiento entre toda la oscuridad que siempre parece perseguir al fútbol mexicano.

Los títulos juveniles empiezan a dejar cosas a la vista de todos. En el equipo olímpico del 2012 jugadores como Diego Reyes, Héctor Herrera, y Raúl Jiménez tocaron el cielo en Wembley, y hoy en día son una realidad en la selección mayor.

Los tres están luchando en Europa cada semana por un lugar en el once titular de sus respectivos clubes. Hoy en día, Estados Unidos no tiene algo similar -- jugadores forjados en México desde los quince años que trascienden en selecciones juveniles para después tomar rumbo a Europa.  

Hay jugadores en México para competir internacionalmente, sólo falta ese entendimiento entre jugador y entrenador para cumplir el gran reto de dejar atrás la penosa hexagonal del 2013-14. No es mucho el tener entendimiento, sino que se crea una alianza lo suficientemente fuerte para contrarrestar las batallas que se avecinan.

Más que nunca la región sabe que ir a México y sacar el resultado es posible. El Tri tiene como primera tarea volver a tener respeto en casa. Es así.

Ha sido un fin de semana lleno de fútbol, y algo llamó la atención que, quizás no se llevará las portadas de ningún diario de fútbol en los países de la CONCACAF. Trinidad y Tobago le ganó 2-1 a Panamá en Panamá, y Haití en seis minutos le metió tres goles a El Salvador y logró una victoria de 3-1 sobre La Selecta. Jamaica jugará el martes en Corea del Sur, ya veremos si saca un resultado positivo en tierras asiáticas.

Recientemente, México ha disputado dos partidos ante la selección trinitaria y ha empatado en ambos, 4-4 y 3-3. Uno puede decir que el fútbol en el caribe crece rápidamente por el roce internacional que mucho de los jugadores caribeños adquieren en Europa, esto les permite ser más despiertos en cuestiones tácticas.

La suerte para El Tri es que en la fase previa al Hexagonal los rivales son Honduras, el rival más difícil, seguido por El Salvador y Canadá.

Jorge Luis Pinto ya cumplió uno de los primeros retos con la selección hondureña -- clasificarla para Los Juegos Olímpicos. La selección hondureña sub-23 fácilmente derrotó al equipo yanqui sub-23. Tácticamente el equipo era más rico que el estadounidense, el cual no podía conectar más de seis pases por largos tramo del partido.    

Canadá es una incógnita, mientras El Salvador es un equipo capaz de plantarse sobre el terreno de juego con orden, eso sí, si la defensa comete errores como las que cometió ante los haitianos, ahí México tendrá que aprovechar.

No nos olvidemos que en la era Chepo durante esta etapa de la eliminatorias, el equipo lo pasó de maravilla. Esta ronda será importante para que el nuevo director técnico, Juan Carlos Osorio, plante su sello.

Es bonito hablar de ser el primero en la región, es bonito cantar la canción de Don José Alfredo Jiménez, pero la victoria del sábado por la noche fue un objetivo cumplido durante una etapa, donde hace de su presencia la incertidumbre. Lo que si es verdad es que la victoria sobre el equipo de Jürgen Klinsmann comprueba que El Tri puede tener un equipo lo suficientemente bueno para cumplir objetivos más grandes, que un simple pase a la Confecup.

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IF El Tri’s game was tomorrow...(last-call)

El Tri’s projected line-up is the following: Moy; Paul, Moreno, Reyes, Layun; Marquez, HH, Guardado; Raul, Peralta and Chicharito.

It’s risky to put Marquez in as El Tri’s only holding midfielder, especially when reports from DF suggest that he’s not fit enough to play 90 minutes (even if he says to the press in Pasadena that he’s 100% fit). 

What if Rafa gets injured early on in the match? One substitution will be wasted in a game that could go all the way into extra-time. 

What’s the point of using a 4-3-3 formation, with three center forwards? The observations that I’ve been able to pick up are that Raul and Peralta will take part in defensive duties, while Chicharito will be the lone-striker. 

Raul’s speed will benefit El Tri, but Peralta will offer very little or nada. Tecatito would have been a better option in a 4-3-3 formation from the start. Maybe in the second-half, we’ll see him. 

Without Jona in the starting-eleven, El Tri leaves on the bench Mexico’s best passer, and a player who would make sure to take away the ball from the USMNT and not give it back. 

But Tuca sees Rafa in the next World Cup and is likely to set him as the only holding midfielder. Tuca’s adventurous decision is dangerous. If he loses, he will leave El Tri as el terco. If he wins, he will leave El Tri as el rey.  

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Is Juan Carlos Osorio the right coach for El Tri?

The question has been asked several times, and I cannot give an answer in a tweet or two. It’s simply impossible. The last weeks have included a lot of research, and even an interview, or two with people who have worked with Juan Carlos Osorio, El Tri’s new coach.

During this time, I have heard, read and seen all the negativity towards Osorio’s appointment as El Tri’s new coach. The man has not even taken a stroll in Mexican territory, and the notion is that there’s more people who want to see him fail, than to actually do great.

Osorio is a passionate fanatic of the game as you and me, only that he possesses a UEFA coaching license.

It’s incorrect to shun him down for his poor spell in Puebla FC. Yeah, Puebla FC, a team that’s usually in the relegation zone and has no sense of direction.

It’s also worth mentioning that even though Sao Paulo only got 12 wins in 28 while he coached them, there has been a lot of praise coming from Brazilian journalists, and footballers such as Pato and Rogerio Ceni.

Let’s not forget that Brazil’s national team proved in the last World Cup that it was losing its jogo bonito essence, and once again in the Copa America, with Dunga as head coach, it lacked jogo bonito.

How do you explain that with la verde amarela in Chile, Douglas Costa didn’t do anything spectacular, but as soon as he arrived in Munich and joined Pep Guardiola’s Bayern, he’s currently the Brazilian footballer that’s stealing the attention for his jogo bonito?

I don’t watch Brazilian football every weekend as I do La Liga and Liga MX, but I was surprised to hear a Brazilian journalist from O Globo in Raza Deportiva say that Brazilian football fans enjoyed watching Osorio’s Sao Paulo because the team always played an attacking style of football.  

Let that sink in for a while: the Colombian coach came to Sao Paulo to reinstate attacking football ideas in a country that’s forgetting how to do what it used to flawlessly do -- to attack.

The fear is that maybe Osorio does have great ideas, but are Mexican footballers ready to accept ideas that will demand them to interpret the game in a fashion that is unheard of in Mexican football?

When you read that Osorio implemented a 3-3-1-3 formation in Atletico Nacional, I try to visualize El Tri playing in that formation, but I have doubts because I don’t know if Osorio will be able to convince the Mexican footballer.

The truth is that El Tri is willing to take the risk in a moment when it has a good number of players playing in Europe and participating in Champions League, while there’s also a solid group of Under-22 footballers knocking the door for a chance in the senior national team.

Osorio will immediately get tested, but it wouldn’t be surprising to know that he already has a list of 23 players, with whom he will, first, win their trust, and second, try to convince them to accept a style of football that will enable El Tri to get positive results. 

Because with positive results, Osorio will win the right to coach in peace, in one of the most chaotic football countries in the world, Mexico.  

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IF El Tri’s game was tomorrow…

This starting XI is set up in a 4-2-3-1 formation, without Rafa Marquez. While Guardado has shown evidence of his recovery, Marquez has been rather quiet about his situation. Luckily, Moreno has become one of PSV’s leaders in a short-period of time and Reyes’s latest performances with la Real have made him into one of the best center-backs in La Liga, according to WhoScored.com. 

Without Rafa Marquez, Gallito and Jona will give El Tri more strength in the middle. Gallito will be able to be of good help to the center-backs, while Jona will feed good passes to HH, Guardado, Tecatito, and Chicharito.

Tecatito’s job can also be done by players like Giovani dos Santos and Carlos Vela; it will come down to Tuca to decide who will be the best option. 

Let’s remember that this game will be totally different from the Argentina friendly. Against la albiceleste the duo of Chicharito-Raul Jimenez worked well because both are good in pressing the opponent’s defenders when they’re trying to come out with the ball from the back. 

In the Barça-Bayer Leverkusen match, Chicharito drove Mascherano and Pique crazy with all the exact pressing. One would have hoped his definition had carried the same precision as the pressing, but it was not the case. 

One last thought, Tuca’s Tigres, at times, becomes too predictable with its attacking charge. El Tri will have a 23-player list with players who can surprise. Naturalmente that means that if the coach can find a fixed system that gets the best out of El Tri’s players, the results will be positive. 

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Against the USMNT, Guardado will be a bigger miss than Marquez

Rafael Marquez and Andres Guardado were brought up in Atlas’ youth teams; Guardado made his Mexico senior national team debut at the age of 19, Marquez at 17; Marquez signed his first contract with a European club at the age of 20, Guardado at 20; Guardado made his World Cup debut at the age of 19, Marquez at 23.  

Both footballers brought up as rojinegros are El Tri’s current captains, exchanging no. 1 and no. 2 roles since the end of the 2014 World Cup.

During this stretch of ups-and-downs, in which El Tri has been minutes away from being absent in the 2014 World Cup to that Philly summer night that saw Mexico’s national team lift the Gold Cup, Marquez and Guardado have been the undisputable leaders. Miguel “Piojo” Herrera’s effusive celebrations are gone, but Guardado and Marquez’s crucial leadership has stayed put.

In a matter of days of each other’s injuries, both players were notified of having long-term injuries, of which are supposed to take at least a month to fully heal. At this point, both players could miraculously appear in Mexico’s starting-eleven against the United States men’s national team, but both will not even be close to fully fit.

Out of the two friendlies, it is the one that happened in AT&T Stadium that left a great impression. Rafa’s game against la albiceleste was his best national team performance since that Mexico-Croatia game in which he scored the first of three goals that helped El Tri get a 3-1 win and secure a ticket to the Round of Sixteen.

After the fifth consecutive Round of Sixteen exit, Rafa’s fourth, Marquez asked former coach Herrera to give him time off from national team duty, so he could focus on his new career adventure at Hellas Verona.

Between the end of the World Cup and the Gold Cup, almost a year, the importance of Guardado in El Tri grew exponentially, to the point that it’s inevitable to suggest that without him in the XI El Tri’s possibilities of winning the CONCACAF Cup are less than a month ago.

While Marquez is already living the back end of his successful career, one that includes 12 titles with FC Barcelona, Guardado is experiencing the climax of his career, receiving admiration and adulation from PSV followers while leading the team during difficult matches like the Champions League group stage match against Manchester United.

When looking at Guardado’s first complete year as El Tri’s captain, there are hardly any low moments; there’s not an instant when Guardado lost grip of things and inexplicably got red carded for losing his calmness. Unfortunately with Marquez that has happened more than once, and the USMNT knows well about it.

Guardado showed a lot of leadership in the Gold Cup, one that will be mostly remembered for questionable referee decisions. But in those instants it came down to Guardado on putting the ball in the back of the net, while his surroundings felt like a volcano about to erupt. He showed the type of composure only the best captains tend to demonstrate in critical situations.

For Mexico, the last Gold Cup was not pretty, but Guardado made it one that will stand out because as captain of the team, he finished with the title of Most Valuable Player, playing a role that equally demanded him to create plays for the forwards as support the defenders.

If Guardado and Marquez don’t suit up for the game in Pasadena, Calif., El Tri’s captain will be someone who for the first time will hold the captain’s armband in a crucial match against the USMNT, a national team, of which Mexico hasn’t been able to defeat since June 2011, ironically at the Rose Bowl.  

Photo via Carlos Barrón 

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IF El Tri’s game was tomorrow...

Every Friday until Oct. 9th, I will post a Mexico line-up I believe “Tuca” Ferretti should select for the Rose Bowl Game. This first line-up could change next week, and the next, or maybe not. Today’s line-up is the same one used against Argentina, with the exceptions being Jonathan dos Santos instead of the injured Andres Guardado, and “Tecatito” Corona instead of Raul Jimenez, who has yet to start a game for Benfica. 

Send me your line-up @nayibmoran