According to Rafael Ramos of ESPN, El Tri’s top office has already created a backup plan in case things go south with Tata Marto and his coaching staff during the WC qualifiers. Yon de Luisa (FMF president) has lost faith in Martino and his project. Mexico is currently 3 rd at the CONCACAF qualifiers, with 17 points (2 ahead of leader Canada) and five matches remaining.
Mexico has struggled since the beginning of the Gold Cup. That form has continued throughout the qualifiers, getting worse game by game to the point that Mexico was just 10 minutes away losing a match against huge underdog Jamaica. They were, by the way down to ten for the entire second period. Mexico won its first six matches without losing (4W, 2D), temporarily sweetening the deal. Martino, however, has been under fire since the two consecutive defeats to Canada and USA in mid-November.
Martino was dealt a difficult hand, despite all that. Martino was elected to be the head coach of this team during a transitional period in which many players, including Rafa Marquez and Carlos Vela, either retired from El Tri or quit soccer. Due to their lack of play in recent years, Miguel Layun and Gio dos Santos have fallen off the radar. Andres Guardado (35) and Hector Herrera (31) are key players who have lost the youthful edge they once had. This is a significant loss in your team’s backbone from one World Cup or another. He’s dealing now with a significant shift in the value and contributions of his players to the team as well as their ability. A manager’s job is never easy.
The reality is that the players he has left behind don’t have the same impact as those who are either retiring or aging. He must make it right and fix the problem. He was hired to do that. Is this really his fault? What other manager would have done it better? Osorio was still in the game four years ago and many were critical of him. Miguel Herrera, his predecessor, had reached a point in which their style of play was also a disaster just before his termination in 2015; it had been that way for some time. This is six and a quarter years ago.
Gerardo Martino has proved himself to be a great manager. He is a skilled manager and knows what he is doing. He has also had success with these teams. It doesn’t get any better than this. He is transparent and honest, and he speaks with high levels of logic. He explained why he didn’t call Chicharito and made many moves that made sense. He even made the winning substitutions in Jamaica last night.
If these reports are true, and Miguel Herrera was contacted by FMF, it would be a major slap on Martino’s face by all involved. These reports are surfacing in the middle your second to last FIFA WC qualifying break, with just five games remaining. This is the mishandling of Mexico’s NT that we have grown to accept over the decades. Once you get this far, you can trust the process and your man to help you reach the next level. If true, Herrera is being disrespectful and unprofessional by attempting to exploit this situation with another person currently in the job. He wouldn’t appreciate it.
Martino has five matches left in the WC qualifying match. Those two goals in just two minutes might have saved Martino’s career. Three consecutive losses for de Luisa may not have been enough. He seems safe for now. There are two tough, but winnable home matches in the next five days that could determine his fate. Mexico will host Costa Rica on Sunday, 5 th, 12 point, followed by Panama at home (4 th), 14 points. We will only know for sure if this report is accurate, but it could be Martino’s last days as Mexico NT manager.
