Tri tidbits

May 2nd, 2006 | by: John |

There is a lot of little news to talk about: a sparring partner, mexican vanilla, difficult decisions, and the reappearance of the desert fox.

The players finally got to play another team yesterday. The Under 21 team came to the training center to spar with the Tri. The 23 split into 2 teams, they played 2 35 minute halves, and won 1-0 and 2-0 respectively.

Don’t expect anything new vs. Venezuela. Ricardo Lavolpe doesn’t want to be predictable during the world cup, so expect a liberal helping of Mexican Vanilla this Friday in Pasadena. Claudio Suarez has also said that the practices are where the decisions for the final 23 will be made, not the games. It sounds to me that Lavolpe must love watching NFL pre-season games.

Members of the team have signed up to be organ donors. Let’s hope they leave it all on the pitch this summer, but hopefully not literally. I also hope they didn’t sign one of those organ donor cards from Monty Python and the Meaning of Life.

The players have responded so well that they are making it hard for the coaching staff’s decision to cut 3 players. When I read between the lines, I read that Jaime Lozano and Claudio Suarez are performing much better than expected, so much so that Lavolpe is considering moving Pineda as a back line defender instead of a carrilero to make room for Lozano.

Jared Borgetti will be back with the team after his 2 ties with Bolton are done this week. Borgetti has been playing more lately, and if he gets a chance to score in those last two games, I’m bullish on his confidence.

Mexico World Cup Team Blog RSS Feed

Rene

Oh… if Lozano returns to his previous level, he definitely needs to go. He adds an offensive dimension that only one other player might add (Ramon Morales), but I think he has a much better physique to play big European teams than Ramon does.

And yes… Lavolpe has been known to use vanilla teams before big competitions.
http://www.worldcupblog.org/friendlies/poland-and-mexico-kick-off-a-month-filled-with-friendlies.html Poland and Mexico Kick Off a Month Filled with Friendlies – FIFA World Cup 2006 – World Cup 2006 Blog

[...] On Friday, Mexico’s team leaves its training camp in paradise to face Venezuela in California. Mexico is one of a handful of teams that have most of its players in one place training together – a bit of a luxury in my opinion. The game against Venezuela is expected to be a mere kick around with the crafty Mexico coach Ricardo La Volpe trying to shield his strategies from the prying eyes of World Cup opponents Angola, Iran and Portugal. [...]
http://mexico.worldcupblog.org John

Ask for an edit, and ye shall receive.
Big-Baller-Shot-Caller

Is it a good problem to have 26 solid players or a bad one? Narrowing it down to 23 is going to be a difficult decision for the coaches.

The more all these stories come about of all the players looking really sharp and competing hard it becomes apparent that Lavolpe had a brilliant strategy for calling 26 players into camp. Motivation.

With the exception of a few players nobody seems to have a spot sewn up, ensuring the players give it their all everyday. And for those overweight and out of shape, extra motivation to get fit.
El Aclantista

From what I been reading our team is getting very focused not just in the physically but mentally as they been having daily sessions with the team psychologists.Do you guys thing they need a psychologist? I’m not too sure about it….
Surge

I’m really happy about the way Lavolpe is handling this WC. I was watching some report of the players trainning in Acapulco, man! it was worse than bootcamp, so as far as the physical aspect of it I expect our boys to be in top shape, for the mental aspect, I think the coach has a stragety that might work, no one as far as I can remember has seen the main staring 11 all at once on the field. This leaves no tapes or stragegies for the other teams to watch. This can be good as it can be bad for lack of quemistry on the field, let’s hope it’s for the best. Vamos Muchachos!
http://deleted Big-Baller-Shot-Caller

Totally agree. It’ll be something special to finally see the starting 11 play together for real.

Assuming Borgetti is starting, because he rightfully deserves it more than anybody, the only issue is will Lavolpe go with Kikin and Borgetti or match Franco with Borgetti.

Or will he go with a triple forward attack!