4 reasons why Mexico beat Germany

Mexico’s win over Germany was as fantastic as it was unexpected. Going up against the defending World Cup champions is never an easy task, especially with Germany still standing as the No. 1 ranked international team in the world and always standing as one of the most talented and dangerous sides around. Sure, Germany weren’t at their best in their warmup friendlies, but neither were Mexico, so even with how talented El Tri are and how high their chances of winning are against almost any other opponent, few gave them a chance to beat Die Mannschaft.

But beat them they did, with Mexico scoring early and holding on to win three huge points and make Germany the third straight defending World Cup champion to lose their opening match of the next tournament. But how did Mexico pull this off? They didn’t just play very very well — they had a big surprise for Germany, a concrete gameplan that proved effective, and particularly inspiring individual performance that paved the way to their success.

During Mexico’s warmup friendlies, they showed a tendency to start slow and work their way into games. They certainly have the ability to start fast, but they’d rarely shown it since the earlier days of the Hex round of World Cup qualifying in CONCACAF. That seemed to be what Germany was preparing for — but instead, they got all of Mexico’s speed and aggression right out of the gate.

Germany had set themselves up to press high with frequency, leaving a bit more room between midfield and defense than they traditionally do. If Mexico had started slow, that would have been fine — Germany would have had time to feel out when Mexico were going to get to a point of working into the match where they needed to drop back and adjust accordingly. But Mexico exploited that space almost right away, launching vicious counters worked though Hirving Lozano and Carlos Vela that had Germany tied up in knots throughout the second half.

That aggression cost Mexico at times in the match because of the energy they expended doing it, but it bought them a massive goal and they backed off the gas at key times to conserve what they had left to work their way through the rest of the match. It was a huge ramble, but in the end, it was more than worth the risk.

One of the biggest things Mexico did to keep Germany off-balance was a constant flow of changes to their shape. They started in something like a 4-2-3-1 with Carlos Verla playing behind Chicharito, but there were times that Vela would push up next to Hernandez to make it a 4-4-2, times Lozano would swing up while Vela went wide, times Lozano would tuck centrally besides Vela and Jesus Gallardo would come up the left flank to play as a winger instead of a fullback, and half a dozen other shifts.

That fluidity made it incredibly difficult for Germany to figure out where attacks were going to come from, and you could see just how hard a time they were having tracking Mexico’s changes on the counter attack that lead to Lozano’s goal.

Even in the second half when Mexico spent more time deep in their own half defending and launching counters more to keep Germany honest instead of outright searching for a goal, they were still changing things up. They changed shape outright with each of their three subs, and used some of the positional flexibility those subs brought to keep changing their shape and ideas based on what Germany was throwing at them, and more importantly to help protect certain players who needed a few lighter minutes of action to save their legs and be ready to step up when needed. Their ability to constantly adapt and shift and adjust was their biggest asset all game long, and it should be going forward in the World Cup as well.

Hector Herrera played an absolutely massive match, one of the very best of his career. He had a very difficult job against Germany, having to switch off between facing a pair of incredible midfielders in Mesut Özil and Toni Kroos depending on how Germany was set up in a given moment. Herrera did incredibly well in his job, though, because guess which two German midfielders were very quiet for long, long stretches of this match? That’s right: Kroos and Özil.

Herrera did a masterful job of keeping the pair contained all day long. Mostly utilizing positioning to limit their running and passing options, and a harrying physical presence when they were on the ball, Herrera kept Özil off balance for long stretches of the match, and really shut Kroos down at times as well, to such an extent that there was a stretch of the first half where Germany’s defenders were forcing the ball out wide to Julian Draxler and Thomas Müller instead of working it through Kroos like normal.

In fact, at the hour mark when Sami Khedira was substituted out of the match, he had more touches on the ball than Kroos did, which is incredibly unusual with how Germany manager Joachim Löw likes to have his team operate, with so much of their possession game flowing through Kroos. That was all down to how well Herrera was playing in this match, and for one player to prove so disruptive to such a major cog in your opponent’s setup plays a huge key in any win, especially one as incredibly impressive as this one.

Look, I’ll be honest here: I’ve been a very outspoken critic of Osorio and how he’s run the Mexico side ever since his appointment. Especially after Mexico’s flat and lackluster performances in their warmup friendlies, many were wondering what Mexico were really going to be capable of in the World Cup, and if Osorio could overcome some apparent weaknesses in the side.

Then against Germany, Osorio made all the right decisions, putting together a tactical masterpiece that left the best international side around and the defending World Cup champions searching for answers. From a lineup well-set to counter Germany’s tactics shown during their warmup friendlies, to effective calls on when to shift formations, to how he timed Mexico’s changes in pace and tactics to conserve energy and effectively use it later, Osorio really didn’t make any mistakes in this match.

It’s not quite enough of an achievement to silence the doubters — there’s an undoubted degree of good fortune in how things worked, and even with how well it went it still took a great showing from Memo Ochoa in goal to keep Germany off the score sheet — but Osorio won himself a lot of credit with what he lead Mexico to do on Sunday. He made all the right decisions, put his team in position to pull off a stunning result, and made sure they got the job done when the opportunity presented itself. From one major Osorio doubter coming into the World Cup: hats off, and well done.