I spent part of my Memorial Day morning writing and the other part keeping Yvie and Kennedy from crawling all over me and my computer. Sometimes, dealing with that pair can be quite a challenge. Okay, well, most of the times it is challenging but I'm working on it...
Anyway, the writing part is not as difficult I must say. On Monday morning, I figured I may as well write something on the Mexican league for The Press-Enterprise since I doubt many other newspapers around the U.S. would have picked up on the incredible soccer story that unfolded south of the border on the weekend.
Actually, at first, I was meaning to write about Cuauhtemoc Blanco and how Sunday was his last game for America before 'Temo joins the Chicago Fire. But after pondering on the relevance of his move versus the importance of Pachuca's championship, I instead chose to follow the Tuzo angle.
Pachuca is easily the class in Mexico right now. There is no debate. Every other team is so far behind, there shouldn't be a number two. Pachuca's glory takes up spots Nos. 1 and 2 as far as I'm concerned.
I'd go into the arguments but I'll just post the link to my PE story on Pachuca so you can read for yourself.
In short, however, Pachuca is strong regardless of who is in charge. The club has won five titles since the Invierno 99 season, and five different coaches have been in charge. Pachuca is hardly the base of the Mexican national team and, in fact, have only role players on El Tri (though Juan Carlos Cacho could change that).
Chivas, America, Pumas and Cruz Azul may take all the glory but Pachuca will gladly take the hardware. The four most popular teams in Mexico have combined for six titles since Mexico went to the current short-season format in 1996. Pachuca has five on their own since then. Toluca also has five but Pachuca gets the nod over los Diablos Rojos because it is Pachuca who became the first and only Mexican club to win a South American tournament.
I don't know about anyone else but to me July 24 (Galaxy-Pachuca at HDC) can't get here fast enough.
Hey Luis. I enjoy your coverage of things in LA. Have you thought about starting a blog which would help us non-Spanish speaking Gringo's understand whats going on in Mexican footie better? The knowledge will certainly help when WCQs come 'round again.
ReplyDeleteLuis,
ReplyDeleteThis 06-07 Pachuca team is the best team in Mexican soccer history. I'm no expert on Mexican soccer, but I think that's pretty clear. If they had been in Libertadores this year, they would be that one team you and the rest of the Mexican community keep hoping for that could actually win the tournament and do so as the competition's best team. Though I hope MLS raids their foreigners (the Mexican guys I could take or leave to tell you the truth--none of them really impress me that much), if this team stays together, they should be the favorite to win the world club championship at the end of the year...
I don't see how you can watch Pachuca and just be impressed with with their foreigners, when Cacho has been simply amazing for los Tuzos.
ReplyDeletePachuca will destroy the Galaxy and probably most MLS teams, too. Archibaldo Cruz is beast. If Onyewu played liked him, he'd be starting for Chelsea, ManU, or any team of hios choice.
ReplyDeleteThey are a great assembly of players.
What makes Pachuca great is that they don't have a lot of top-tier talent. They have traditionally not lost many players to Mexican national team games because they haven't really had many players involved with the national team. In '01 and '02 they did but that was mostly because Javier Aguirre left Pachuca to coach Mexico.
ReplyDeleteThey just have solid professionals who have a standard to live up to.
This very well could be the best Mexican team ever. All they do is win. I don't know that any Mexican team has ever held three trophies at once.
eric pz:
ReplyDeleteThat's a good idea. I know there is interest in Mexico among some Americans and others outside of Mexico but it is difficult to follow a league when you know little about the history and how it's run and all that.
I might just do something here and call it like Mex101 or something and try to inform you guys about the Mexican league in a very simplistic yet informative way.
For instance, there really isn't free agency in Mexico and there aren't any free transfers. There is some lame gentlemen's agreement in place where clubs can sign players who are out of contract but have to pay a transfer fee to the old club even though they aren't by FIFA mandate to do so. It's lame, but that's how they do business down there.
Pachuca is an awesome team but to call them the best team of all time in Mexican history is an overstatement.
ReplyDeleteThe quality of football Pachuca plays is outstanding. Enrique Meza deserves a lot of credit for turning his career around and they have a sweet organization.
I do wonder how they would have faired in the Pre-Libertadores era, and Pre-Sudamericana era amongst all the outstanding clubs from the big 4. At the same time, I wonder how the big 4 clubs would have done internationally in those days.
LB.
ReplyDeleteSounds good. Oh, and didn't Chivas sign someone who was supposed to go to Club America via one of those deals but they shipped him to Chivas Gringo to avoid that mess? Can't remember which player that was. Anyway, I'll keep an eye out.