Soccer World Cup 2010 / Mexico

This article covers the Mexican national soccer team at the 2010 Soccer World Cup .

qualification

The team qualified via the CONCACAF qualifying games for the World Cup in South Africa .

Because of a bye for the first round, the team only took part from the second qualifying round, where it clearly prevailed with a 2-0 and 7-0 round trip against Belize .

In the third round, the team under national coach Javier Aguirre Onaindía met Honduras , Jamaica and Canada . The team achieved second place in the group with three wins, one draw and two defeats from six games and thus reached the fourth qualifying round. Jamaica, who had just as many points at the end of the third group stage, had to retire early from qualification due to the lower goal difference.

The Mexicans took second place in the fourth qualifying round, where they previously faced the USA , Honduras, Costa Rica , El Salvador and Trinidad and Tobago .

Second round

June 15, 2008 : Belize 0-2 Mexico (0-0)

June 21, 2008 : Mexico - Belize 7-0 (3-0)

Third round

rank	country	Gates	Points
1	Honduras	9: 5	12
2	Mexico	9: 6	10
3	Jamaica	6: 6	10
4th	Canada	6:13	2

August 20, 2008 : Mexico 2-1 Honduras (0-1)

September 6, 2008 : Mexico 3-0 Jamaica (2-0)

September 10, 2008 : Mexico - Canada 2: 1 (0: 0)

October 11, 2008 : Jamaica - Mexico 1-0 (1-0)

October 15, 2008 : Canada - Mexico 2: 2 (1: 1)

November 19, 2008 : Honduras 1-0 Mexico (0-0)

Fourth round

rank	country	Gates	Points
1	United States	19:13	20th
2	Mexico	16:10	19th
3	Honduras	17:11	16
4th	Costa Rica	15:15	16
5	El Salvador	9:15	8th
6th	Trinidad and Tobago	10:22	6th

February 11, 2009 : USA - Mexico 2-0 (1-0)

March 28, 2009 : Mexico - Costa Rica 2-0 (1-0)

April 1, 2009 : Honduras 3-1 Mexico (2-0)

June 6, 2009 : El Salvador - Mexico 2: 1 (1: 0)

June 10, 2009 : Mexico - Trinidad and Tobago 2: 1 (1: 1)

August 12, 2009 : Mexico - USA 2: 1 (1: 1)

September 5, 2009 : Costa Rica - Mexico 0: 3 (0: 0)

September 9, 2009 : Mexico - Honduras 1-0 (0-0)

October 10, 2009 : Mexico - El Salvador 4: 1 (1: 0)

October 14, 2009 : Trinidad and Tobago - Mexico 2: 2 (1: 0)

Mexican contingent

National coach Javier Aguirre nominated 26 players in his preliminary World Cup line-up, from which he had to cut three players. In addition to the two players from Mexico, Juan Carlos Valenzuela (Club América) and Adrián Aldrete (Monarcas Morelia), who were canceled on May 14, Jonathan dos Santos from FC Barcelona, ​​the youngest player in the provisional squad , also missed on May 31 , the leap into the 23-man, final line-up.

Legionaries

Nine of the 23 players were under contract with a club outside of Mexico at the time of the tournament. All of them were active in Europe. The Eredivisie presented with three players the largest contingent to the Mexican European legionnaires. The Premier League and La Liga each had two players, while only one player was active in the Bundesliga and the Süper Lig . Ricardo Osorio , Rafael Marquez and Guillermo Franco left Europe after the World Cup, while Pablo Barrera and Chicharito made the leap to Europe, both going to the Premier League. While Barrera signed with West Ham United , Javier Hernandez moved to Manchester United .

No.	Surname	Club before the start of the World Cup	birthday	Games	Gates
goalkeeper
1	Óscar Pérez Rojas	Jaguares de Chiapas	02/01/1973	4th	0	0	0	0
13	Guillermo Ochoa	Club America	07/13/1985	0	0	0	0	0
23	Luis Ernesto Michel	Deportivo Guadalajara	07/21/1979	0	0	0	0	0
Defender
2	Maza	PSV Eindhoven	10/20/1981	4th	0	1	0	0
3	Carlos Salcido	PSV Eindhoven	04/02/1980	4th	0	0	0	0
4th	Rafael Marquez	FC Barcelona	02/13/1979	3	1	1	0	0
5	Ricardo Osorio	VfB Stuttgart	03/30/1980	4th	0	0	0	0
12	Paul Aguilar	CF Pachuca	03/06/1986	1	0	0	0	0
15th	Héctor Moreno	AZ Alkmaar	January 17, 1988	2	0	1	0	0
16	Efraín Juarez	UNAM Pumas	02/22/1988	3	0	2	0	0
19th	Jonny Magallón	Deportivo Guadalajara	11/21/1981	0	0	0	0	0
20th	Jorge Torres Nilo	UANL Tigres	January 16, 1988	0	0	0	0	0
midfield player
6th	Gerardo Torrado	CD Cruz Azul	04/30/1979	4th	0	1	0	0
7th	Pablo Barrera	UNAM Pumas	06/21/1987	3	0	0	0	0
8th	Israel Castro	UNAM Pumas	December 20, 1980	1	0	1	0	0
17th	Giovani dos Santos	Galatasaray SK	05/11/1989	4th	0	0	0	0
18th	Andrés Guardado	Deportivo La Coruña	09/28/1986	3	0	0	0	0
22nd	Alberto Medina	Deportivo Guadalajara	05/29/1983	0	0	0	0	0
striker
9	Guillermo Franco	West Ham United	03/11/1976	4th	0	1	0	0
10	Cuauhtémoc Blanco	CD Veracruz	January 17, 1973	3	1	0	0	0
11	Carlos Vela	Arsenal FC	03/01/1989	2	0	0	0	0
14th	Chicharito	Deportivo Guadalajara	06/01/1988	4th	2	1	0	0
21st	Adolfo Bautista	Deportivo Guadalajara	05/15/1979	1	0	0	0	0
Trainer
	Javier Aguirre		December 01, 1958

Preliminary round

rank	country	Gates	Points
1	Uruguay	4-0	7th
2	Mexico	3: 2	4th
3	South Africa	3: 5	4th
4th	France	1: 4	1

Mexican fans immediately after the South Africans opening goal in the opening game.

In the preliminary round of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the Mexican national team met in Group A against the hosts South Africa as well as Uruguay and France .

It was the fourth time that Mexico played in the same preliminary group as France at a World Cup: in 1930, both teams faced each other in their first ever World Cup game and France retained the upper hand 4-1, although the French played undernumbered for more than an hour due to injury . At the 1954 World Cup, the Mexicans lost 3-2, but struggled with what they considered to be an unjustified penalty in the 88th minute. The only international match point against the French so far was at the 1966 World Cup, when the two teams split 1: 1.

In addition, "El Tri" played in the preliminary group in 1966 against Uruguay, against which a 0-0 was scored. In Mexico's 17th World Cup comparison it was the first game without conceding a goal and at the same time the last World Cup game of their legendary goalkeeper Antonio Carbajal , who was the first player ever to appear at five World Cups.

Mexico had never played against South Africa before.

• Friday June 11, 2010; 16:00 in Johannesburg (Soccer City) South Africa - Mexico 1: 1 (0: 0)
  

For the fifth time (after 1930, 1950, 1958 and 1970) Mexico played the opening game of a world championship.

The Mexicans dominated the game in the first half and worked out several opportunities that Giovani dos Santos and Guillermo Franco could not accommodate in goal. Carlos Vela scored the first goal of the game , but was rightly denied recognition due to a narrowly offside position . In the last minutes of the first half, the South Africans were able to make the match more balanced and had two chances to score. In the 55th minute, Siphiwe Tshabalala took the opening goal from the left corner with a powerful shot in the right corner, which Rafael Márquez was able to equalize in the 79th minute. The Mexicans almost lost the game after South Africa goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune hit the ball well into their half of the field, but Katlego Mphela hit the post in his subsequent action.

• Thursday June 17, 2010; 8:30 p.m. in Polokwane France - Mexico 0: 2 (0: 0)
  

In the seventh comparison with the “Equipe Tricolore”, “El Tri” was successful for the first time. Before that, there had been five defeats and one draw for the Mexicans. In addition to the three World Cup matches mentioned above, there were three other games between 1996 and 2006 in which Mexico did not score a single goal. From the Mexicans' point of view, they ended 0: 2, 0: 4 and 0: 1. But this time "El Tri" met an opponent who had dismantled itself through scandals and deservedly won 2-0 thanks to a strong performance. Because Uruguay won against South Africa in the parallel game, a draw would have been enough for both Latin American teams in the following direct comparison to qualify together for the round of 16.

Mexico could have taken the second-minute lead against the French selection, but Giovani dos Santos's oblique shot only hit the inside post. In the next half an hour the Mexicans worked out a number of good opportunities, none of which led to success. The first chance for the French came shortly before the break when Nicolas Anelka failed to Mexico goalkeeper Óscar Pérez Rojas . In the second half, the French team seemed completely unimaginative and collapsed almost completely. So it was only logical that Mexico scored the opening goal in the 64th minute. After a brilliant submission by Rafael Márquez , Chicharito rounded keeper Hugo Lloris and pushed the ball into the empty goal. A quarter of an hour later, France's central defender Éric Abidal knocked Mexican striker Pablo Barrera off his feet in the penalty area . The 37-year-old veteran Cuauhtémoc Blanco converted the penalty that was due to make it 2-0. After the game, France midfielder Florent Malouda complained : "It's a shame to lose like this."

• Tuesday June 20, 2010; 4:00 p.m. in Rustenburg Mexico - Uruguay 0: 1 (0: 1)
  

After a serious mistake by the Mexican central defender Héctor Moreno , Luis Suárez came in the sixth minute from a half-right position for the first chance for the "Urus", but missed the goal by a good meter. In the 18th minute, Mauricio Victorino headed completely free after a corner kick brought in by Diego Forlan over the Mexican goal. After “El Tri” gradually freed himself from the initial grip on the “Celeste”, Andrés Guardado withdrew from around 25 meters in the 22nd minute, but only hit the crossbar. Although the Mexicans got a better grip on the game from now on and played several minutes in the majority due to a prolonged treatment of the injured Diego Pérez , the Uruguayans - again complete at this point - scored the opening goal immediately before the break. Forlan had prevailed in midfield and passed Edinson Cavani on the right , who hit a precise cross into the box that Suárez turned with his head. Because in the parallel game hosts South Africa led 2-0 against the disappointing vice world champions France at the break and Mexico thus only had a goal difference two goals better than "Bafana Bafana", progress was in serious danger at this point. In the 54th minute, Uruguay's captain Diego Lugano almost scored the 2-0 and could have exacerbated Mexico's nervousness. Only then were the Mexicans able to improve their attacking efforts and came in the 64th minute at their best opportunity, when "Maza" Rodríguez headed a cross from Pablo Barrera and narrowly missed the goal. Because "El Tri" did not score a goal themselves, the more attention was focused on the parallel group game, and twenty minutes before the end of the game the Mexicans were finally able to breathe a sigh of relief when the news of the 1: 2 goal by the French made the rounds .

Final round

Round of 16

• Sunday June 27, 2010; 8:30 p.m. in Johannesburg (Soccer City) Argentina - Mexico 3: 1 (2: 0)
  

The Mexicans prevented the "Gauchos" from building up the game properly by using aggressive fore-checking and had two excellent opportunities in the early stages. A long-range shot from Carlos Salcido hit the crossbar in the eighth minute and a minute later a shot from Andrés Guardado just missed the target. With a very concentrated and running-intensive defensive tactic, the Mexicans cleverly prevented the Argentines from coming dangerously close to their goal. One of Argentina's first chances came in the 26th minute when Lionel Messi prevailed and served Carlos Tévez , who hit from a clear offside position . But the team of referees recognized the illegal hit and visibly threw the Mexicans, who had been acting confidently up until then, visibly off the mark. The Mexicans continued to lose out after Ricardo Osorio had sent the ball against Gonzalo Higuaín . The Argentine striker then played the Mexican goalkeeper Óscar Pérez Rojas and made the score 2-0 in the 33rd minute for half-time. The final preliminary decision was made by another Tévez goal in the 52nd minute, when his ball, fired from around 22 meters, landed in the corner of the goal to make it 3-0. In the following period, the game rippled on because the Argentinians limited themselves to defending their lead. The passive way of playing the "Albiceleste" gave the Mexicans a few more options. But after Gabriel Heinze was able to knock an overhead kick from Salcido off the line in the 70th minute, it was only enough for a connection goal by Chicharito in the 71st minute.

Web links

• All matches in the preliminary round at a glance ( memento from September 29, 2010 on the Internet Archive ) on FIFA.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ goal.com: Valenzuela, Aldrete Out Of Mexican National Team (May 14, 2010)
2. ↑ co.terra.com: México descarta a Jonathan Dos Santos y tiene su lista de 23 para el Mundial (May 31, 2010)
3. ↑ kicker.de: Marquez mimes the spoilsport (article from June 11, 2010)
4. ^ Süddeutsche.de: France is sinking into chaos (article from June 21, 2010)
5. ↑ Stern.de: Mexico shoots France into the crisis
6. ↑ Kicker.de: Blanco brings the French house of cards to collapse
7. ↑ Welt.de: France after embarrassment against Mexico before the end
8. ↑ Kicker.de: Suarez beheads the Celeste to win the group
9. ↑ Kicker.de: Tevez 'offside goal paves the way