Mexico scored twice on a sleep walking Brazil devoid of Kaka and Ronaldinho in the first half behind goals from Nery Castillo (brilliant) and a stunning free kick from Ramon Morales to win 2-0. By the time Brazil woke up it was too late to break through great goalkeeping from Guillermo Ochoa despite the Brazilians outshooting Mexico 18-5.
With Jared Borgetti injured and Mexico without a trio of European stars youth served the Mexican national team well in the Gold Cup. The absence of Pavel Pardo, Ricardo Osorio and Carlos Salcido may have been considered a major loss heading into the match but in the end Mexico got a deserved result.
Thoughts: *The attacking future of Mexico revolves around Castillo.
* Guillermo Ochoa’s performance was impressive for a 21 year old. He is the future of Mexican goalkeeping
despite the great performance by Oswaldo Sanchez against the U.S.
* Brazilian first goal by Diego was ruled offside and should not have been
* For me Brazil was a disappoinment and did not seem motivated.
* The game clearly lacked the intensity and pace of the recent U.S./Mexico game.
* A victory over Brazil was a great response for the Mexican national team especially after the loss against the U.S. in
the Gold Cup.
* The win is especially important to set the tone for the Copa America for Mexico but one result does not convince
me of Hugo Sanchez.
June 27, 2007
Mexico get deserved win over Brazil in Copa America
8 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. | TrackBack URI
And I believed Mexico was doomed. After the lost against U.S. I was sure their moral was very, very low, then they lost 3 guys, actually lost is not the word, they deserted the team, so I said, not only are they loosing 3 very good players, this will lower their moral even more.
Borguetti is not a real loss, in fact, they play better offense without the guy, but they also lost Guardado?, I’m not sure of his name, but the guy whose head hit the floor very hard in the game against the U.S., and Rafael Marquez was coming out of a long injury.
And the fact that Hugo has been a terrible coach made me believe that Mexico was going to be lost today.
Was I wrong or what, it seems that loosing the 3 deserters plus the 2 injuries gave this team what it really needs, fresh blood, they played with a huge heart, and they played calmly, I didn’t expect that against Brazil.
This is what i was talking about, this tournament is needed by Mexico and the U.S. to get real respect from the world, and Mexico got a little respect today (specially since it seems that this is the 3rd time Mexico has beat Brazil in Copa America, not bad for beeing just their 7th Copa and their 5th game against Brazil in the tournament), Aretha Franklin was right, everyone needs R E S P E C T , and Mexico got some more today, thats why I wanted the U.S. to send a better team, I understand about thinking of giving some quality matches to the future of the team, to be thinking of 2010, but come on, you can do that without sending a B team, what if U.S. young guns get stage fright (Venezuelan crowds will be very hostile, heck, I don’t think they will be comfortable in their own hotel, anything they have experience in Central America is nothing compared to what they will experience in Venezuela) in their first game, thats against Argentina, God forbid we loose by a difference of 3 goals, when we need respect we will get the opposite.
Yes, great that the young guns will have those games, but surely we could have found the right balance.
Comment by jarrambide — June 27, 2007 @ 11:06 pm
Glenn,
I watched pretty closely, and I actually did not think Mexico played a very good game at all. They saw almost none of the ball in the second half, and created few meaningful chances until the counters in the end. They were so inept that the same guy was offsid 3 times in the span of a minute doing the same play towards the end. Fortunately for Mexico, Brazil sunk to an all-time low. My best friend’s dad is Brazilian, and he told me before the game tonight that this was the worst team Brazil had ever assembled for any competition in his lifetime. He was right…
Comment by Nick — June 27, 2007 @ 11:47 pm
Not sure what Nick was watching, but I thought Mexico played well given the level of competition. I saw both of their games at Reliant this month and there was no comparison. I thought they played well against the US but basically got out-coached by Bradley\’s 2nd half changes.
Dunga got out-coached last night. Rather than take a page out of the US book (blasphemy) and use their physical advantage to pressure Mexico, they played off Mexico for much of the game. They tried to out-skill them, which probably works 9 out of 10 times, but Castillo was on last night (thought the parallel between his missing the open net in the last second to Beasley\’s miss on Sunday was ironic).
As for Brazil putting out a poor team, I guess it all relative when you have such an embarrassment of riches. They may not be the top Brazilians but they are still among the best in the world. Silva, captain of Arsenal; Afonso, top scorer in the Eredivisia last season; Alex who man-handled Arsenal\’s front line in the Champions League quarter finals; Robinho, second only to the incomparable van Nistelroy at Real Madrid. Piece of cake.
Comment by Stuart M — June 28, 2007 @ 9:10 am
It was a game between a team that has one tournament (Gold Cup) under it\’s belt vs. a team that just came back from vacation with their sun tan lotion on.
In the second half, Mexico played defensively after the two goals. They just sit back and preserve the win.
The US national team could have crash this party, unfortunately, the team we field will not be the same team that have just brew a good chemistry. Let\’s hope that Ricardo Clark will keep them agressive.
Comment by SLY — June 28, 2007 @ 10:33 am
SLY , actually the players that played yesterday for Mexico are a different bunch that was playing in the Gold Cup, with the 3 deserters, the 2 injuries, the fact that Hugo decided to change a few players (like the goalkeeper) 8 of the 11 eleven starters were not starters in a single game of the Gold Cup.
Comment by jarrambide — June 28, 2007 @ 11:02 am
As for Brazil putting out top talent:
Vagner Love and Elano are average players in Europe, at best. Robinho is wonderful, but is not a goal-scorer, never has been and never will be. Simply cannot finish. Alex is good, but frequently gets exposed for pace. The rest of the team is talented, but showed no effort, teamwork, intensity. It was a pathetic performance from Brasil. The US would have won that game 3-0.
Comment by Nick — June 28, 2007 @ 1:03 pm
It might be too early yet to judge Hugo harshly.
He hasn’t been coach for that long.
As for the US, they wouldn’t do well in the Copa
America even if they had a first team there.
The US can’t win overseas as seen in last year\’s
World Cup.
Comment by Sergio — June 28, 2007 @ 10:54 pm
Being sixty years old and a fan of soccer, I have seen great player come and go, yet the things that still gives you the Willy-Nilly feeling is seing the conversion from a promising player to a star. When it happens, it happens overnight. We saw Leonel Messi not long ago tell Argentina: Look at me and forget the old druggie. What we saw in the game against Brasil was also an announcement by Nery Castillo and Guillermo Ochoa: Goodbye Blanco, goodbye Borgetti, goodbye Oswaldo…we have arrived! We are seeing the old Mexican guard go by way of the Dodo, and its about time. This evolutionary process is essential if they ever intend to keep up the the U.S.
Comment by Alberto Arcia — June 29, 2007 @ 3:12 pm