By Aldo Mena
El Tri had arrived at Copa America desperately needing redemption. After being eliminated from the group stage of play of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar for the first time in 44 years, Mexico proceeded to lose to its arch-rival the U.S. Men’s National Team in the Concacaf Nations League final in March of 2024 extending their string of defeats to the United States to a record seven matches.
Sure, during the interval between the World Cup and the latest Nations League defeat, Mexico managed to win the Concacaf Gold Cup in 2023, but, in all honesty, it was a tournament that was not vigorously contested by the United States who chose to field a distinguished but lesser squad. Most of the U.S.’s European-based players actually skipped the tournament opting instead to return to Europe to begin training with their respective clubs.
Most recently, in Copa America play, Mexico managed to secure a tenuous 1-0 victory over Jamaica in its group stage opener in a game that it never really seemed to control, and, in the process, lost its captain and West Ham midfielder, Edson Alvarez to a hamstring injury,
Things would only get worse from here. Mexico would go on to suffer a humiliating 1-0 loss to Venezuela before an overwhelmingly pro-Mexico crowd of 72,773 at SoFi Stadium in Southern California.
And then in the coup de grâce, Mexico, despite attacking with intensity throughout the match, was unable to secure a tournament-saving win against Ecuador on Sunday in Glendale, Arizona, and was eliminated in group stage play from the 2024 Copa America.
It’s worth noting that even the most pessimistic of observers expected Mexico, ranked 15 in the FIFA rankings as of June 20th, to, at the very least, advance from group stage play. None of the teams Mexico encountered in their group-Jamaica, Venezuela, and Ecuador- ranked higher than 30 in the FIFA rankings. One of the teams, Venezuela, had NEVER beaten Mexico in an official match.
Citing the pressing need for generational change, Mexico’s head coach, Jaime Lozano, opted to leave a number of experienced players off of Mexico’s Copa America squad. Notable omissions included current PSV and future San Diego FC winger Hirving Lozano, veteran goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa of Serie A Salernitana in Italy, and, perhaps most surprisingly, Fulham forward Raúl Jiménez who at age 31 is hardly a senior citizen. The most notable omission, however, has to be Julian Araujo, age 22, who is currently on loan from Barcelona to Union Deportiva Las Palmas in La Liga in Spain. Multiple reports suggest that he is likely to be a first-team player at Barcelona during the upcoming 2024/2025 season.
In the aftermath of Mexico’s defeat to Venezuela, Futbol Americas podcast co-host, Hercules Gomez referred to Mexico’s current iteration as the “Worst generation of Mexican players I’ve seen in my lifetime.” In the same podcast, his co-host, Sebastian Salazar, struck a similar tone noting that “It’s hard to find a sign of hope for Mexico.”
But, what makes Mexico’s current reality all the more troubling is that there doesn’t appear to be any solutions to Mexico’s problems on the immediate horizon, at least not without some profound systemic changes to Mexico’s domestic league, Liga MX.
The United States’ domestic league, Major League Soccer, commonly referred to as the MLS, features a single-entity corporate structure which means that the league itself owns both the teams and the players’ contracts, and can ultimately make independent determinations related to the sale of players.
While I am certainly not claiming that all of the U.S.’s current European-based players started off in MLS youth academies, this corporate structure has apparently facilitated the sale of a number of key American prospects to top European clubs and, in the process, served the interests of the United States’ national project. El Paso’s own Ricardo Pepi is just one notable example. Pepi, who is currently playing in the Eredivisie in the Netherlands for PSV Eindhoven is essentially a product of an FC Dallas-affiliated youth academy.
In case anyone was wondering, the current US Copa America roster consists of predominantly European-based players with just three players from the MLS.
This is not the case in Liga MX. As noted in a recent Guardian article, unlike the MLS, which is eager to sell young American players to European clubs, “Liga MX teams are often reluctant to sell up-and-coming players and, when they do allow a young star to leave, it often is to one of the bigger Mexican clubs.”
What this effectively means is that many promising Mexican players “hit a ceiling, often knowing their place in their club’s starting XI is secure and rarely being challenged by new techniques or information coaches in Europe’s top five leagues can offer.” The result has been stagnation in the ranks of Mexico’s national team.
There are, of course, several exceptions to this pattern. Cesar Montes is playing in Spain for La Liga team Almeria. As mentioned earlier, Alvarez is playing for West Ham in the English Premier League and Araujo is playing for La Palma in La Liga in Spain. Santi Gimenez is playing for Feyenoord in the Netherlands. Jorge Sanchez is playing for Porto in Portugal. Johan Vasquez is playing on Serie A club Genoa. But, these players are “outliers” rather than the norm for Mexico.
In the aftermath of Mexico’s elimination from Copa America, there are many challenges confronting the Mexican Football Federation at this point. One of these challenges should be figuring out a way to help promising young Mexican players find their way to Europe.