Mexico 2 Nigeria 2

A draw that should have been a loss for Mexico. That sums up the game for me. I was very troubled by how easily a couple crosses to Nigeria´s Martins caught the Mexican back line unprepared and left Salcido one on one with a Nigeria attacker! On one occasion Salcido tried to do a Chilena style kick to clear the ball and he missed and the other time he was left one on one and commmitted the penalty, which was missed but could have counted for a field goal. Where in the hell where Castro and Magallon during all of this?

A theme throughout the game was whenever Mexico played a one touch fully inclusive offensive attack (during the first 20 minutes of the game) they controlled the game and created more opportunites. During the last 20 minutes of the first half Mexico reverted to individual attacks and not only lost control of the game but gave up a gol. Cacho was a ghost in the first half due to miscommunication between Giovani and Arce on the flanks which made the 4-4-2 into more like a 4-5-1. Good thing Guardado was there to pick up the pace and help with the ball distribution. After Nigeria scored the second gol I got a little heated and turned the game off for a while and missed Cacho´s two gols so I can´t comment on that.

Salcido played as a center back in the absence of Marquez so he wasn´t as free to run up the field and go on those offensive sprints he´s prone to. Salcido´s sprints with Guardado´s dribbling and pace are good complements plus Salcido could help take pressure off of Guardado who was getting marked out of the game at times. I´d love to see a Salcido-Guardado partnership in the midfield for the Olympics but we´ll have to wait and see. Without Marquez the defense looked unstable at times. Acre had some great set piece kicks, one that was an own-gol that wasn´t counted. It´s going to be a long plane ride back for that Nigerian who missed the penalty at the end of the game. This is one Nigeria just let slip away!