Photo: Etzel Espinosa / Imago7
The Mexican team stumbled on Tuesday in Edmonton and the reasons abound: a climate of up to 16 degrees Celsius below zero, two blunders from its legendary goalkeeper, slowness of the coach to make changes and of course, a very flawed refereeing.
In the end, the only thing that counts is the result of 2-1 in favor of the Canadian team that leaves them in the first place of the Octagonal final of the Concacaf towards the World Cup in Qatar 2022.
The Tricolor loses more ground and dawns this Wednesday to third position, also below of the United States.
Mexico has signed one of its worst recent FIFA dates, as only on Friday had lost 2-1 against ‘Team USA’ in Cincinnati . Two games against the neighbors of North America and zero points in the bag of the coach Gerardo “Tata” Martino, increasingly questioned.
Through the years, the selection of the stars and stripes has continued improving, not free from his own debacles, but his eternal goal of reaching Mexico had not reached .
Although the USA reached the quarterfinals of the World Cup in 2002 after beating El Tri -which has not yet appeared in a fifth World Cup match outside their country-, the idea that Mexico was still superior prevailed.
And then we get to 2021: The United States won three consecutive official battles against Mexico , something unprecedented and completely unexpected. The wins were in the Nations League final in overtime , then in the final of the Gold Cup despite not having its stars , and just the weekend at the Octagonal.
For the pride of Mexican soccer, that three-game sweep causes burning .
But the situation is even worse after this Tuesday because Canada has also become an opponent that Mexico is entangled with . This year, Canada already had drawn a draw against Tri in full Azteca Stadium in October and earlier, in July, Mexico suffered to the extreme to eliminate those of the maple leaf in the semifinals of the Gold Cup thanks to a goal at 99 minutes .
In other words, Mexico was nowhere near a blank in their last six combined meetings with the United States and Canada. That was unthinkable before, but it is the new reality of the region, and although El Tri is still in a good position to seek the ticket to Qatar, the public discomfort is justified.
The future of the region is a huge question mark.