AUSTIN, Texas – On one side of the rivalry between the United States and Mexico, Mauricio Pochettino was radiant. Adulation flooded the field Saturday after a 2-0 victory over Panama. amateurs chanted Pochettino’s nameand a banner with his face summed up the consensus atmosphere around the US men’s national team: “BELIEVE.”
On the other side, in Puebla, Mexico, boos rained down.
It rained for the fifth time in six games, following a 2-2 draw against Spanish side Valencia, in a friendly that should have offered a pressure-free environment to build on. But, of course, in Mexican soccer there is no such thing. And so, as the USMNT travels south to meet its archrival for the 78th time on Tuesday (10:30 p.m. ET, TNT), the atmosphere around The Tri It is plagued with discontent and restlessness.
To calm him down, in July Mexico fired Jaime Lozano and hired its fourth coach in less than two years, Javier Aguirre.
Aguirre, in his first days on the job, talked about his desire to “give the fans what they’re looking for” and “make sure all the fans leave happy with what they see.” But at the end of their second game, a 0-0 draw with Canada in an empty AT&T Stadium in two-thirds of Texas, frustration returned.
And a month later, after Saturday’s draw against a Valencia reserve team, fatalism arrived.
“Neither (Aguirre) nor anyone else has a ‘magic wand’ to end our football crisis,” said popular TUDN pundit David Faitelson. wrote in X.
Former national team full back Miguel Layún He asked for a questioning of “everything” in Mexican soccer, starting with the development processes. “We have to do introspection, a very deep analysis and start correcting from the bottom up, even if that costs us the 2026 World Cup,” he said.
The crisis in Mexico cannot be blamed on the coaches
The recurring clamor, in many ways, has been counterproductive. In the past, it has prevented continuity and collective growth. Now, however, at least some sectors of the Mexican soccer establishment are searching and considering the root cause of their pain.
The cause, of course, is not the training of senior teams. Tata Martino, the first of four recent coaches, was not the reason Mexico was left out of its group for the 2022 World Cup. Neither he nor Lozano nor any of the 18 men who have coached him The Tri in the 21st century it could elevate this current group of Mexican players to soccer’s elite.
Those actors, and the systems that shaped them, seem to be the problem. There has long been an incongruence between the expectations and reality of the Mexican player pool, but it has become especially pronounced in recent years. In 2018, Mexico could field a starting eleven, mostly from clubs in Europe’s big five leagues or the Champions League. In 2024, only three of the current roster of 27 players play at that level; 19 of 27 play in Liga MX.
This is no knock on the Mexican league, which remains the pinnacle of North American club soccer. Nor is it an attack on any of those 27 individuals; When they put on the green jersey of the national team, they almost always fight like crazy for the badge, for each other and for their country.
But they’re just not good enough. They have not grown as their predecessors did. Liga MX clubs have been hesitant to sell them and are eager to pay them, which keeps them at home, away from the valuable hassles of the European circuit, and probably slows down your personal progressjust as it would be to stay in MLS for a twenty-something American player.
There are likely many other reasons for the decline in quality: most of them debatable, some diagnosed, and some less clear. But the reality is that the current Mexican team is… relatively ordinary.
Aguirre’s return marked by constant pressure
Then Aguirre arrived, for the third time, to rescue The Tri of a crisis. He was on the field, as a player, the last time Mexico won a World Cup qualifying match (in 1986). Shortly after retiring, he moved into coaching and has managed 10 different clubs and three different national teams: Japan, Egypt and his homeland, Mexico.
In his first two stints in charge of Mexico, starting in 2001 and 2009, Aguirre began shaky World Cup qualifying cycles. However, when he took over again in August, this time with former player Rafa Márquez as his assistant, he noted that this third assignment is a very different task.
“There is a project that is not just about rescuing three World Cup qualifiers,” Aguirre said. He celebrated the long-term vision of the Mexican Football Federation. There are no playoffs, only friendlies and regional tournaments; and “enough time to form a good team” between now and the 2026 World Cup.
But of course, that was also the company’s line for the 2024 Copa América. By omitting the veterans and selecting an experimental squad, sports director Duilio Davino said: “We want to take advantage of this great opportunity to not think about the immediacy of the result and project our path towards 2026”.
Then they reacted to the result, an elimination from the group stage, and fired Lozano, because the pressure cooker never lets up.
So here they are again, with inescapable dissatisfaction. Aguirre’s first two friendlies, against New Zealand and Canada last month, were played in virtually empty stadiums. The third, Valencia’s tie, amplified the discontent. Their fourth game, against the United States on Tuesday night in Guadalajara, will be played amid unrest.
And for Mexico, there are very few advantages. With Christian Pulisic and Weston McKennie leaving the American camp – and seven USMNT regulars are already injured – the expectation is a victory. A loss would set off more alarm bells. The two programs are on parallel paths to 2026 and in similar stages of mid-cycle restart; but the moods around them couldn’t be more different.