forbidden to obsess
“What we all want is to play the famous fifth game,” admitted Gerardo el ‘Tata’ Martino when he took over the technical direction of the Mexican National Team in January 2019.
In Qatar-2022, Martino’s ‘Tri’ will integrate Group C together with Poland, Argentina and Saudi Arabia, and it will arrive with a very identified problem.
“Mexico has been a team without a goal in recent games, it has generated very little up front and that is highly worrying,” said Félix Fernández, a Mexican World Cup exporter in 1994 and current television commentator.
For Fernández, a big mistake that the Mexican team would make would be to start Qatar-2022 dragging the frustration of the past seven World Cups.
“We shouldn’t be obsessing about the quarter-finals or the so-called fifth game, we should go game after game.”
And in this gradual advance, Fernández and Schwartz agree that to aspire to reach the fifth game, Mexico must win the first against Poland, on November 22.
“To transcend, the important thing is to win the first game against Poland because if you don’t beat Poland, the chances in a tournament as short as a World Cup will be reduced,” Schwartz commented.
Regarding that first game, Fernández pointed out that “while Mexico works well, it has few goals, Poland works poorly, but it has one of the best scorers in the world: Robert Lewandowski.”
In that step by step, after Poland, Argentina will be Mexico’s rival and Fernando Schwartz is confident that in that game the pass to the round of 16 could be consummated.
“Although everyone tells us that Argentina is going to beat us, I am one of those who thinks that Mexico is going to have a superlative situation against Argentina”.
In the event that Mexico passes the first phase, in the round of 16 “the crossover is going to be very complicated, it could be against France, which is one of the favorites,” Félix Fernández anticipated.
If Mexico reaches the round of 16 for the eighth consecutive time, the previous seven lessons must be used. “What should the Mexican team do?” asks Schwartz and replies: “Enjoy the World Cup, forget about all the external pressure and, above all, not make mistakes that cost a lot in a World Cup.”