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Mexico are not favourites for the World Cup, but you can be sure El Tri will add colour to Qatar.
It’s hard to imagine a World Cup without Mexico. The North American giants have been at all the World Cups in the 21st century and will be hoping they can beat their previous best finish of the quarterfinal.
Mexico’s Road to Qatar
Mexico finished second in the CONCACAF qualification league behind Canada on goal difference, and ahead of the USA with three points. Their qualification was straightforward, as it has been for most of the last few tournaments, as they won eight of their 14 matches during qualification, and lost only twice.
Mexico’s best World Cup performances
Mexico will be going to their 17th World Cup, and in their last seven attempts, they have exited in the same round. They’ve been unable to go beyond the round of 16 since they reached the quarterfinal of the 1986 edition they hosted.
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That finish, along with their quarterfinal finish 16 years earlier in 1970, when they also hosted, are their best finishes at the World Cup.
I’m not too sure they will be looking forward to reaching the same heights in Qatar, since they followed both quarterfinal finishes by failing to appear at the editions that followed.
After the 1970 world cup, they failed to qualify for the 1974 edition, and after the 1986 World Cup, they were banned from the 1990 World cup for the Cachirules scandal when they were found guilty of playing overaged players in the under-20 CONCACAF cup.
Maybe they should just be satisfied with another round of 16 exit this time around.
Mexico’s Qatar 2022 World Cup Squad
Of Mexico’s 16 appearances at the World Cup, both Guillermo Ochoa and Andres Guardado have been called up to four each, and are set to equal Rafa Marquez’ record of being at five consecutive World Cup tournaments for Mexico.
Ochoa and Guardado will be part of an experienced team that has four players with more than 100 caps and another with 94.
Fans of El Tri can look forward to seeing national heroes like Hector Moreno, Edson Álvarez, and Raúl Jiménez, although they will be without Sevilla’s Jesus Corona who was ruled out through injury.
Here is a full list of Mexico’s squad for the 2022 World Cup.
Mexico’s Star Players
Hirving ‘Chucky’ Lozano
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Hirving Lozano has been part of the Mexico national team setup since 2016, and he has proven himself to be one of the best and most important players since then. He’s scored 16 times for Mexico and assisted 11 more in the 59 games, and was their top scorer in the qualifying for the 2018 World Cup with 4 goals.
This season with Napoli, he has also registered three goals and three assists in eight starts in Serie A, helping them to the number-one spot in Italy. If Mexico are to make any headway in the group, then they’ll be relying heavily on Lozano to help them fashion an attacking threat.
Guillermo Ochoa
At the other end of the pitch will be Guillermo Ochoa who is probably defrosting from his cryogenic chamber with a few days left until the start of the World Cup.
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For the last four World Cups, Mexico have depended on Ochoa’s heroics in goal to save them at critical moments, and they are lucky they can call him up again for a record fifth time.
The Club America stopper already has 131 appearances, and they’ll be hoping he can bring back some of his best World Cups performances one last time.
Mexico’s World Cup coach
Leading Mexico from the dugout is none other than Argentine coach Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino, who has previously coached Barcelona and the Argentine national team.
Before coaching Mexico, he proved his coaching calibre by leading Argentina to consecutive Copa America finals and has already achieved the second-highest winning percentage of his career with Mexico.
At the World Cup, he’ll be looking to take another team to the latter rounds of a major competition, and he has the squad to do achieve it.
Mexico’s World Cup fixtures
Mexico vs Poland - 22nd November 17:00 UTC +1 (Nigerian time)
Mexico vs Argentina - 26th November 20:00 UTC +1
Mexico vs Saudi Arabia - 30th November 20:00 UTC +1
Mexico’s chances and odds at the world cup
As a country that has never been beyond the World Cup quarterfinal, and one missing one of its best players in Jesus Corona, Mexico winning the World Cup is considered very unlikely.
They have been awarded odds of 150.00 to claim the ultimate prize. They are, however, considered favourites to at least qualify for the group and have been awarded odds of 1.89 to reach the round of 16.
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