Thursday, September 25, 2008

Oh yeah, the result

So Mexico did lose on Wednesday after all as I mentioned briefly in my previous post.

Now, before people start to call for Sven Goran Eriksson's head, let me remind them of one minor detail: it's a meaningless friendly he lost.


Meaningless in terms of result and impact of the loss. Mexico is 3-0-0 in World Cup qualifying so far. The game probably shouldn't have been played since no European players were available and neither were players from six Mexican teams, yes SIX including a couple of important teams in Chivas and Santos (in terms of players they provide the national team).

Eriksson will continue to prepare the squad for World Cup qualifying and I think before people start to get upset with or lose confidence in Eriksson, let's wait until he plays some qualifying games on the road. That's not exactly a great deal of adversity but it will be the first potential bit of adversity he faces when Mexico plays at Canada and at Jamaica. He'll have his full team then and will be playing in games that matter, not a meaningless friendly.

A loss or two and then it might be open season. But to lose to Chile with what some people called a C team - on an own goal at that - ... who cares? I just don't see how that would reflect bad on Eriksson.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sven has always had a healthy disregard for the outcome of non-competitive and exhibition games.
He won ALL bar five COMPETITIVE games with England, but had a very mixed bag of results in "friendlies".
Going all out for a win in a friendly without using the opportunity to experiment is only vanity! keeping the "best" for the real matches is surely sanity?
Svenalike.co.uk

Anonymous said...

it did not rally look like chile A team out there either, how about you stop with your excuses, its getting old. MEXICO LOST simple as that, you want to rationalize and say it doesnt mean anything then you do that play with your mind like that if thats makes you feel good. truth is 3 straight home games, lets see what your made of on the road.

Gabriel in Argentina said...

I have to agree, look at the names on the Chile squad that played against Brazil in the qualifier just last month..or against Colombia..then look at the team that played the other night..luis..try to keep a little of your integrity....or at least..just pretend

Anonymous said...

i have to agree with luis, this game was pretty meaningless, if it were a qualifier they would have won it

& that's just not an excuse