Mexico were a lot of different things in their 3-2 win over the Netherlands Wednesday. They were entertaining, dangerous going forward and a bit of a mess all at the same time.
Mexico aren’t a finished product yet, and that’s OK
Miguel Herrera has work to do with Mexico, but the raw talent is there for him to create a great team.
Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images
As great as the result was, they didn’t really look like a team. They looked like a work in progress, but they’re a very talented work in progress pulling off great results. At this point, that’s pretty good. They might even be ahead of schedule.
For the first time in more than three years, Carlos Vela was in the Mexico team, and he showed why El Tri pursued him so strongly, earning a pair of goals in the match. "Chicharito" Javier Hernandez added a goal of his own, and all was right in Mexico's world.
Nobody dreams of a friendly in a stadium with thousands of empty seats. But after Mexico crashed out of the World Cup against the very same team they were playing and without their unicorn, Vela, this was close enough. To see him and Chicharito leading the line -- something they thought would bring them a decade of dominance ever since the pair linked up as teenagers -- really was a dream.
While Vela and Chicharito did the work up top, Hector Herrera was nothing short of brilliant in the midfield. The 24-year-old has been in sterling form for Porto and is carried over to the national team, as he almost single-handedly kept the midfield together. The Netherlands had acres of space in the middle, but they couldn’t get anything going because Herrera covered an incredible amount of ground to win balls, take away opportunities and protect a back line that needed plenty of shielding.
The amount of talent Mexico has can be stunning. Vela, Chicharito and Herrera were the stars, but Andres Guardado wore the captain’s armband and is growing into his new role in the center. Diego Reyes needs to sort out his club situation, but he was fine in a new role against the Netherlands, while Adrian Aldrete was excellent. There’s also the surging Tecatito Corona, whose pass set up Vela’s second goal.
And not only do Mexico have those young stars, but there were plenty of huge talents missing, too. None of Hector Moreno, Oribe Peralta, Miguel Layun, Luis Montes or Juan Carlos Medina were picked for this squad. Between the players in the team and that group, El Tri have a gaggle of talent that most countries in the world would be envious of.
But talent has never been an issue for Mexico. They have had enormous potential for the last four years, and only made good on it for a short stint in 2011. Managerial changes, nonsensical styles of playing and a complete lack of consistency in player selection have prevented them from achieving sustained greatness. They have had great players, but rarely a great team.
Even in beating the Netherlands Wednesday, they still weren’t quite the great team fans have been hoping this group of players would become -- the same issues that have corrupted this Mexico team remained. They lacked shape in the midfield and opened up acres of space on the counterattack. They were unsure of which players to send forward and when. Reyes is, at best, a work in progress in the libero role. Nobody could have been comforted by watching them defend.
All of that is okay.
Expecting Mexico to be a cohesive team at this point in the international football cycle is laughable. They haven’t been that for a while, but they also don’t need to be for another eight months, which is when they play their next competitive match -- at the 2015 Gold Cup. Until then, they only need to be concerned with building a team that can win that tournament, compete the following year in Copa America, then again at the 2018 World Cup.
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When Miguel Herrera took over Mexico in September 2013, they were in crisis, or perhaps something much worse than a crisis. El Tri were a mess, a disaster, a pile of vomit masquerading as a team. And yet, come the World Cup, they got out of their group and nearly into the quarterfinals thanks to Herrera’s super duper tape job. He managed to bring together enough pieces and arrange them into a workable team.
For the first 10 months of Herrera’s tenure, he just tried to keep things from falling apart. He did it masterfully, but that was managing in a state of emergency. That is no longer the case, and now he gets to build something excellent. He can develop something sustainable. He can look beyond the next match.
This is only a start for Mexico. So what if they were flawed against the Netherlands? That’s to be expected. It’s not as if the team’s issues should be ignored, because they do need to fix them. They need to sort out their defense, they need to figure out how to defend against the counter attack and they need to make sense of their shape, but they have time to do that.
Right now, Herrera is building, and he is building with Vela. He is building with Chicharito. He is building with Herrera and Guardado and Gio and Moreno and Tectatito and Reyes and a dozen other big talents. He is building with incredible potential and we saw flashes of that against the Netherlands.
Mexico are a work in progress, and that’s fine. Just think about what can be and try not to get too excited (not that we would blame you).
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