|
Mexico national football team |
Mexico national football team
The
Mexican national football team represents
Mexico
in
association football
and is governed by the
Mexican Football
Federation (FMF), the governing body for
football in Mexico.
Mexico's home stadium is the
Estadio Azteca and their head coach is
José Manuel de la Torre.
The team is currently ranked 20th in the
FIFA World Rankings and 12th in the
World Football Elo
Ratings.
Mexico has qualified for fourteen
World Cups and has qualified consecutively since
1994; Mexico played
France
in the very first match of
the first World Cup
on 13 July 1930. Mexico's best progression was reaching the Quarterfinals in
both the
1970 and
1986 FIFA World Cups,
both of which were staged on Mexican soil.
|
Mexico national football team |
Mexico is historically the most successful national team in the
CONCACAF region, as they are the only team from
the region to win an official FIFA recognized title. They hold one
FIFA Confederations Cup,
nine
CONCACAF championships, including six
CONCACAF Gold Cups, one
North American Nations
Cup and two
NAFC Championships.
Although Mexico is under the jurisdiction of CONCACAF, the national football
team has been regularly invited to compete in the
Copa América since
Ecuador 1993 finishing as runner-up twice and
obtaining the third place medal on three occasions.
History
Early
years
|
Mexico national football team |
Football in
Mexico was organized in the early 20th
century by
European
immigrant groups, notably
Cornish miners
from
Cornwall,
England, and in later years
Spanish
exiles fleeing the
Spanish Civil War.
The original team played Guatemala, which the Mexican team won 3–2.
A series of international friendlies were played against the national
representation of
Guatemala
on December 9, 12, and 16 of 1923. The match on December 9 was played in
Parque
España and was won by Mexico with a final score of 2–1. On December 12, the
match ended in a 2–0 win for Mexico, and the final game of the series ended in
a 3–3 draw.
[4] The manager for this team was
Rafael Garza Gutiérrez "Récord", and the assistant coach was Adolfo
Frías.
[4] The fourteen players selected for
this friendly series include: Nacho de la Garza, Pedro "Perico"
Legorreta, Manuel "Güero" Yáñez, Enrique "La Matona"
Esquivel, Agustín Ojeda, Roberto Jardón, Carlos Garcés, Horacio Ortiz, Adeodato
López, Mauro Guadarrama "La Venada" Alatorre, Cornelio Cuevas, and
Alfredo García Besné.
It would be another four years before the national team would be represented
in international friendlies. In preparation for a friendly against
Spain,
the team played a friendly against their "B" squad on June 12, 1927,
winning 4–2. On June 19, 1927, the Mexican squad faced a selection from
Spain,
drawing 3–3. During this series, the squad also played against the
Uruguayan club
Nacional de
Montevideo, losing 1–3.
|
Mexico national football team |
Formation
On August 9, 1927, the official governing body of the sport of
football in
Mexico was founded. From its inception, the federation has been the main body
in charge of the promotion, administration, organization, management, and
funding of the Mexican national football team as well as all football
competition within Mexico. Club representatives from the federation's first
division all vote on the direction, management, and coaching staff of the
national football team. The
1928
Summer Olympics were hosts to Mexico's first international
tournament. Prior to the tournament, the Mexican squad held friendlies against
a representative
Asturias
side as well as two friendlies against
Spain. These
matches resulted in two draws and one loss. At the Olympic tournament, Mexico
faced Spain in the Round of 16 on May 30, 1928, resulting in Mexico's defeat of
1–7.
Mexico participated in the
1930 FIFA World Cup,
having been grouped together with Argentina, Chile, and France. Mexico's first
match was played against
France
at
Estadio Pocitos
in
Montevideo,
Uruguay on July 13, 1930. The match ended in a 4–1
win for France, but witnessed Mexico's first World Cup goal by
Juan Carreño.This match occurred simultaneously with
the
USA–
Belgium
match. In their second match of the tournament, Mexico fell to Chile 3–0 at
Montevideo's
Estadio Gran Parque
Central. Mexico's third match, against Argentina, featured the first
penalty of the tournament, awarded in the 42' and
scored by Mexico's
Manuel Rosas.
A total of five penalties were awarded during the match which was refereed by
the Bolivian coach
Ulises Saucedo,
three of them controversial.
|
Mexico national football team |
Post-WWII
Mexico did not appear again in a
World Cup tournament until the
1950 FIFA World Cup.
Before 1970, Mexico struggled to make much of an impact in the World Cup when
competing against European and South American teams. However, goalkeeper
Antonio Carbajal has the distinction of being the
first player ever to appear in five consecutive FIFA World Cups.
In 1970, Mexico hosted the World Cup and kicked off their campaign with a
scoreless draw against the
Soviet
Union. This was followed by a win over
El
Salvador (4–0). Mexico advanced to the next round with a victory
against
Belgium
thanks to a penalty scored by
Gustavo Peña in the 14th minute. At the
quarter-finals stage, Mexico was eliminated by
Italy in a
4–1 match despite Mexico taking an early lead.
Mexico failed to qualify for the
1974 FIFA World Cup
but did make it into the
Argentina '78.
Mexico suffered an early exit after three defeats: 0–6 against
West
Germany, 1–3 against
Tunisia,
and 1–3 to
Poland.
Mexico failed to qualify for
Spain 1982.
In 1986, Mexico again hosted the
World Cup.
Coached by
Bora Milutinović,
Mexico was placed in Group B where they defeated
Belgium
2–1, draw 1–1 with
Paraguay,
and defeated
Iraq 1–0.
With this performance, Mexico won the top spot in its group and advanced to the
next round where Mexico faced
Bulgaria
in a 2–0 win. In the quarter-finals stage, Mexico lost to
West
Germany 0–0 (1–4
pens).
|
Mexico national football team |
The Cachirules scandal
Mexico was disqualified from the 1990 FIFA World Cup (and any other
international competition) after using players over the age limit allowed by
FIFA in the qualifying round for the
1989
FIFA World Youth Championship. The punishment originally was only
going to be applied to the FIFA World Youth team and not the World Cup or
Olympic Games team, but the penalty was applied to all Mexican national
representatives of all FIFA sanctioned tournaments. This was a hard intake, as
this was the golden time for the legendary striker
Hugo Sanchez, where in the next World Cup, he was
just considered a "good" player, rather than a "legendary"
one. Many other players that were having an exciting moment in their club
careers such as
Carlos Hermosillo
(
Standard Liege (
BEL),
Ricardo Pelaez (Necaxa),
Alberto Garcia Aspe
(UNAM),
Adrian Chavez
(America),
Felix Fernandez
(Atlante),
Luis Flores
(UNAM),
Zaguinho
(America),
Miguel Herrera
(Atlante),
Benjamin Galindo
(Guadalajara),
Daniel Guzmán
(Universidad de Guadalajara), Guillermo Huerta (America); plus many others saw
their World Cup 1990 dreams shattered, crushed and ruined by this scandal that
in the Mexican media became known as the "
Cachirules".
Home stadium
The
Estadio Azteca,
(Aztec Stadium in English), also known in Spanish as "El Coloso de Santa
Úrsula" is a
stadium in
Mexico City, Mexico built in the 1960s. It is the
official
home stadium
of the Mexico national football team and the Mexican club team
Club América. It has a capacity of 105,000 seats, making it the largest
association football
stadium in the Americas and the third largest stadium in the world for that
sport.
The stadium has carried out many important sporting and historical events in
its existence including the
FIFA World Cup in 1970 where
Pele
won his last championship. The earthquake of 1985, which destroyed most of the
city, did not damage the stadium. Thus, the stadium could host the
FIFA World Cup in 1986 where Argentina won the
cup.
It was the primary venue for association football at the
1968 Summer Olympics
and is the only stadium ever to host two
FIFA World Cup final matches, in
1970 and
1986. It also
hosted
the 1986 quarter-final
between Argentina
and
England
in which
Diego Maradona
scored the "
Hand of God goal"
. The stadium also hosted the "
Game
of the Century", when
Italy
defeated
West
Germany 4–3 in extra time.
Images of the football players of Mexico national football team are;
|
Mexico national football team |
|
Mexico national football team |
|
Mexico national football team |
|
Mexico national football team |
|
Mexico national football team |
|
Mexico national football team |
|
Mexico national football team |
|
Mexico national football team |
|
Mexico national football team |
|
Mexico national football team |
|
Mexico national football team |
|
Mexico national football team |
|
Mexico national football team |
0 comments:
Post a Comment