Starting 2009 In Shame

Mexico 0 – Sweden 1

Mexico took their first step into 2009 and landed on a tack.

B team vs. B team. Friendly match in the United States. American football lines on the field. Is this scenario familiar? It’s because it’s the scenario of the notorious “held for the heck of it and some extra money” US friendlies where Mexico plays clumsy and boring football during these friendlies. Yeah, yesterday was no different.

Yes, it was only a friendly, and we played with pretty much the B team, although we had many A teamers like Pardo, Sinha, Oswaldo, etc. and Sweden had a bunch of league players and U-20 youngsters. Mexico still played no different than they did most of last year and it was the same old team that we’ve grown to love to hate on from last year.

Lineup: O. Sanchez (Ochoa 46′) – Martinez (Valenzuela ‘46), L. Lopez, E. Duenas (J. Dominguez ‘52) – L. Ayala (Sinha ‘59), P. Pardo, Leandro, I. Martinez (Villaluz ‘70) – A. Medina, Vuoso (C. Ochoa ‘46)

The match was an even affair, with possession leaning more towards Sweden but with an even amount of chances and misses. There were some signs of effort from Mexico, notably Jagger Martinez, Alberto Medina and Lucas Ayala making some good runs in the first half. However, it was apparent that Sweden wanted the victory much more, and you could see that with their superior possession and solid chances on goal (they even missed a complete sitter right before the first half ended).

The second half began where the first half left off, another back-and-forth battle with decent chances for Mexico. The Swedish goal was actually a sigh of relief for the lack of goals in the game, with the Mexican defense marking poorly and allowing a perfect through ball and an easy slot-in. The goal wasn’t enough to wake Mexico up and Sweden began trying harder after this. The rest of the game was a sad display by Mexico with intercepted passes everywhere and an overall tired-out performance, proved by Memo Ochoa passing the ball out of play instead of passing it to his teammate. Loser.

Highlights:

It was an overall failed experiment that isn’t any help for the next match against the United States. The much-needed overhaul hasn’t come yet, but then again would you expect to see one in a B-team showdown that was mostly done for some extra revenue? It’s true that our recent form has been crap, with the last victory being the unconvincing victory over Ecuador in November. There were some good moments in the match but the overall performance of the team was just junk. And what kind of captain gets yellow carded for a stupid tackle in the first half hour of the match anyway.

This was an embarrassing loss that only fuels more swear words to describe the Mexican team right now. However, this friendly will barely have any effect on the United States match in two weeks. That will be an almost completely different team on the pitch with the objective of qualifying for the World Cup stamped in their minds. We can only “pretend this never happened” and the only bite in the ass that we’ll take is the drop in FIFA rankings. (Speaking of which, I hate having to scroll down just to see Mexico’s position. I’m used to it being in the top 15.)

So from now on: what Sweden game? What are you talking about?

Gallery:

Sven: “Must. Not. Celebrate. Sweden goal.”