Off to Pasadena

I bet there is a huge crowd for this one. Holiday atmosphere and all!

Posted from  United States

I’ve heard a lot about how Mexico is not going to use all of their strenght against Venezuela.

I also read that the 3 spots left will be defined on training and not on friendlys. Still I think that it will be a good chance for Claudio, Huiqui, Bravo, Fonseca, Chiquis, Pineda, Sinha, Lozando and the rest to prove they diserve a spot in the starting 11.

What do you think?

Posted from  Mexico

I have always been a Lozano fan, so I hope he can prove his mettle. One of the dailies called undisputably the best free kick taker Mexico has. I can’t argue with that.

If it were up to me, the 3 I would leave behind are Chiquis, Israel and Maza/Huiqui.

Posted from  United States

Agree with Chiquis, Israel and Maza. I’m with Lavolpe on Huiqui, he does inspire confidence.

Posted from  Mexico

I don’t know about you, Luis, but Huiqui definitely does not inspire me confidence… :S

That’d make a nice post, you know? Ask the fans who would you cut out from the roster… Personally, I’d leave behind Chiquis, Maza and Huiqui… You know, buy them a few beers and let them enjoy the World Cup from the confort of their homes… but that’s just me…

Posted from  Mexico

It couldn’t be Maza and Huiqui, because the play the same position and would leave us in a very shaky position.

Even though I think Maza has 2 or 3 mental breakdowns per game that could prove to be fatal, he also is the tallest and most robust defender, and could fare better when having to battle it out with a European.

As for Huiqui, I have to admit I didn’t see anything particularly special when playing with el Tri. He was not bad when it came to marking, but he was rather deficient when having to distribute the ball. Maybe I’m just too spoiled by the good amount of finesse defenders Mexico is producing these days.

I just find it funny that we never seem to have the right mix of players per position: for years we had probelms finding good wingers on the left field (and would have to go back to Ramon Ramirez every time), now we have too many. We used to have very a strong midfield in the early 90s (Galindo, Garcia Aspe, Marcelino Bernal, Nacho Ambriz, Ramon Ramirez), and now we barely have enough, includling a nationalized player. We had a great group of forwards in the middle and late nineties (Hermosillo, Luis Hernandez, Pelaez, Cuahtemoc Blanco, Jared Borgetti, Manuel Abundis), and now we barely have 4 of them, and again, we have one Mexican who was not born in Mexico.
And for 2 decades (since Mexico 86), we had all sorts of trouble having a dependable group of defenders, and we probably have the most dependable group ever.

And although we always have had a solid and dependable group of Goalkeepers, this time around we have a very deep group. We probably have in Mexico 6 or 7 GKs that could have easily gone to the World Cup and done a good job.

Go figure.

I completely agree with you about the right mix of players. There is a deficiency of solid forwards in Mexico, but this is a problem for a lot of nations.

At least Mexico has 3 capable forwards, the fourth Bravo, is a subpar finisher and too small, frail, he dives a lot, finishes the hard plays and misses the easy ones. Frustrating, because he does have his moments and a good shot.

The defense looks very solid, counting the 2 suspended players and it has to be considered the very best unit ever.

There is a lot of unfair criticism about Maza, he makes mistakes etc…well everybody makes mistakes including the very best defenders and goalkeepers in almost every game.

Througout a game, what you try to do is work as a unit and Maza is good enough to work well in an organized unit.

The positives on Maza are this: he can score off of any set play, the guy is an animal in the air. And he can win any defensive header in the box.

For some reason, this talent is not appreciated by the average fan. Winning defensive headers in all sorts of ways is extremely difficult to do.

Its not hard to imagine seeing Maza win a close game for them just by sending him in the box and hoping he gets a head on it in the late moments.

Imagine the difference Maza would have made against Germany in 98′. Mexico gave up 2 soft goals in less than 10 minutes all off of blown headers.

The midfield problem has to do more with the coach. He likes the smallish versatile players that are extremely nimble. Guys like Bernal, and Ambriz, even Coyote werent as mobile but were tougher tacklers better at controlling the middle. Lavolpe likes his players quick, smaller, agile and likes to move them all around with the exception of Pardo. To each their own.

Posted from  United States

Sorry, but Maza is the type of defender that has very infantile errors, like a soft pass back to the GK that is intercepted by a forward and silly things like that. His problem is not physical, but mental because of poor decision-making.

I don’t care how much of a beast he is in the air. He can be a great liability because of those stupid stupid mistakes.