Mexico's growing pains under Rafa Márquez are frustrating, but expected
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Mexico's growing pains under Rafa Márquez are frustrating, but expected
Andrés Soto, USA TODAY
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4 min read
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LOS ANGELES – The boos that rained down from the reported 56,529 fans onto the pitch at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Tuesday night made one thing clear: This performance from Mexico was not good enough.
El Tri carried plenty of momentum after the managerial torch was passed from Javier Aguirre to national legend Rafael Márquez immediately following theirhistoric run at the 2026 FIFA World Cupthis past summer. But "La Era de Rafa" is off to an uneasy start after a winless debut international window that included a3-0 loss to the United Statesfollowed by asloppy 2-0 loss to Chile, which hadn't kept a clean sheet in its last seven matches.
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It seemed as if La Roja was able to get behind the Mexico defense at will on Tuesday, often breaking through the back line on counterattacks. It finally paid off in the 56th minute when Maximiliano Gutiérrez tapped the ball to Gonzalo Tapia at midfield and took off. Tapia immediately poked a through ball back to Gutiérrez as he effortlessly glided into the box, and delivered a shot between the legs of Álex Padilla for Chile's first goal of the night.
Nine minutes later, Johan Vásquez badly missed a sliding tackle on Vicente Pizarro entering the box that left nothing but turf between the Rosario Central midfielder and Padilla. Pizarro dribbled into the middle of the box just to the side of the penalty marker and fired a low shot into the bottom left corner of the net for Chile's second.
It was a far cry from the stout defense that had Mexico competing toe-to-toe with England in the round of 16 at Estadio Azteca three months ago.
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"We maybe struggled a bit in our defensive execution," Márquez said in Spanish after the game. "We started maybe having doubts, it was really easy for them to get behind us. We tried to put the best team out there, especially because of the workload we've been carrying over these past few weeks, but it was clear that maybe wasn't the best way to go about it."
But that rotation, Márquez contended, was the point of these friendlies.
Moreso than any end result over these last four matches, he wanted to get a look at young players like Padilla, a 23-year-old goalkeeper at Athletic Club who made his senior national team debut on Tuesday, or guys who were on the World Cup team but didn't get many minutes such as Obed Vargas or Armando "Hormiga" González. Even players who were once expected to be stars but crashed down to earth such as Chucky Lozano and Santiago Giménez got some runway in these last couple weeks, though it's become clear that El Tri is still looking for another reliable goalscorer to put alongside Raúl Jiménez and Julián Quiñones.
Not to mention it's the first time a chunk of this roster has played together. Combine that with a mix of veterans such as Jesús Gallardo, Álvaro Fidalgo and Érik Lira -- all of whom saw big minutes in the World Cup -- and a new coach, and growing pains are to be expected.
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"The reality is that yes, we have to obviously keep working at this, we have to keep improving," Márquez said. "There's of course a lot of room for improvement; we will address that."
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To Márquez, this international window represented an opportunity to see what he has to work with so he can figure out how to approach next month'sConcacaf Nations League quarterfinalagainst Jamaica. The kinks are still being worked out, and this very obviously wasn't the final version of any roster that Mexico will roll with a month from now, but the first career win as manager forEl Káiser de Michoacánwill now have to come in a game that counts.
The pressure is on from the outside. It's frustrating to not win games. But internally, Márquez fully expects his calculated approach to his first international window to pay off by the next one.
"I think we have more clarity now going into the next matchup, which is a lot more meaningful," he said. "We know that we will have to bring the people we need for these types of games."
