Friday’s CONCACAF qualifying
matches will go a long way to clarifying who will represent the region in 2014
in Brazil. The United States and Costa Rica are already in, while a victory for
Honduras would see it grab a spot in the intercontinental playoffs at worst.
But by far the most fascinating match of the day is the Mexico-Panama match at the
Estadio Azteca. If Panama defeats Mexico—once unthinkable—two things will
happen: the canaleros will effectively
sew up the playoff spot, moving Panama
closer than it ever has been to a berth in the World Cup finals (it is one of
only five Latin American nations—the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua,
and Venezuela being the others—that have never played in the World Cup); and it would mean that el Tri would
likely miss the World Cup for only the fifth time in its history—and the first
time since 1990, when the cachirules scandal
(discussed below) saw all Mexican teams banned from international play.*
That Mexico might miss the World
Cup with its present team seemed unthinkable at the start of qualification.
With players like Chicharito and Giovani dos Santos, Andrés Guardado, Pablo
Barrera**, and Carlos Salcido—who ended 2011 with a scintillating come from
behind win in the Gold Cup—combining with the 2012 Olympic gold medal squad,
Mexico should have been battling with the United States for the top spot in the
hexagonal rather than fighting for its life.
But somewhere along the way the Mexican squad (and its former coach José
Manuel “Chepo” de la Torre) lost the script, and the promise held by the team
dissipated. The once impregnable Estadio Azteca, where El Tri had lost only once in qualifying between 1961 and 2013 now
seems like just another stadium: Mexico has not won a game at home in the
hexagonal, tying three times and losing to Honduras.
The fact is that Mexico, long
dominant on the regional scale, has rarely translated that success onto the
global stage. Mexico’s soccer promise, we might say, often goes unfulfilled.
The same might be said of the country: from the Mexican Revolution to the
discovery and nationalization of vast oil reserves the Mexican people have been
promised much, yet poverty and inequality remain the norm. Indeed, according to
Manuel Seyde, Mexico’s few triumphs and “more common disappointments” result in
the country and its soccer being “gripped by insecurities.” Its fate, both in
sports and otherwise, is to be “a giant in its region and a shadow in the rest
of the planet." (1)
Regional Promises,
Globally Broken
The Mexican national team
disembarked in Montevideo on a chilly winter day in July 1930. The weather did
not improve for the first game Mexico played in the inaugural World Cup. If the
national team blamed the weather for its 4-1 loss to France, it could not do
the same for its next two games: a 3-0 loss to Chile and a 6-3 defeat at the
hands of eventual runner-up Argentina. Called “primitive” by the Argentine
press, Mexico finished last in the tournament and allowed the most goals. This
certainly was an inauspicious start to the Mexico’s World Cup history. In
truth, the federation should not have been surprised by the outcome. The
Mexican team had practiced little before departing for Uruguay, and arrived in
Montevideo after a 26-day voyage only two days before its first game.
This was
not Mexico’s first foray into international soccer. In fact, while national
leagues helped bring the country together after the Mexican Revolution
(1910-1920), across the 1920s international play served to bring the nation
together as well. In 1922 a Mexican team, primarily made up of the amateur team
América, traveled to Guatemala for a three game series, defeating their hosts
in two games and tying one. (2) A year later, Mexico again defeated the guatemaltecos,
this time at home. These successes created a surge in popularity for the sport.
Tours by foreign teams to Mexico, which began in the late 1920s, also led to
greater interest in the game, as Mexicans turned out in droves to see how their
teams would fare against those from Spain, Chile, and Uruguay. Generally,
Mexican teams lost. And while the Tricolor had success in regional
championships such as the Central American championships, in international play
outside the region, Mexico lost too. The squad that represented Mexico in the
1928 Amsterdam Olympics, for example, lost both of its matches: 7-1 to Spain
and 3-1 to Chile. And though el Tri met success in qualifier matches for the
1934 Cup—defeating Cuba three times—it failed to qualify for the finals, traveling
to Rome to lose a play-in game against the United States. Indeed, the Tricolor
rarely represented itself well in international tournaments. Between 1930 and
1958, Mexico participated in four of six World Cups, managing only one tie. In
1962 Mexico finally earned its first victory in the World Cup, but that hardly
changed its fortunes. El Tri failed to win a game in 1966, and did not qualify
for the 1974 or 1982 championships. Nevertheless, notwithstanding Mexico’s poor
showings, international play helped to popularize soccer and forge a sense of
identity. Indeed, with the exception of nationalizing oil in 1938, soccer was
perhaps the most important symbol around which all Mexicans could unite. And
eventually the outcomes of Mexico’s matches improved.
Mexico, 1970
The World Cup of 1970 offered an opportunity for unity in Mexico, especially after the 1968 Olympic Games. In soccer terms, perhaps, this opportunity was lost. It is often, though not always, the case that host nations advance farther in the World Cup than they might otherwise. Until South Africa’s crash in 2010, no home team had failed to make it out of the first round. Sweden, for instance, lost the 1958 finals against Brazil. Four years later, Chile, which likely would not have qualified for the championship were it not the host, finished in third place. England too, a perennial quarterfinalist, won the trophy at home in 1966, but has only reached the semifinals one other time. So hosting the Cup and finishing sixth, as Mexico did in 1970, should be seen as a lost opportunity. But in placing Mexico on the world stage, hosting the Cup promised—and in part delivered—much.
The World Cup of 1970 offered an opportunity for unity in Mexico, especially after the 1968 Olympic Games. In soccer terms, perhaps, this opportunity was lost. It is often, though not always, the case that host nations advance farther in the World Cup than they might otherwise. Until South Africa’s crash in 2010, no home team had failed to make it out of the first round. Sweden, for instance, lost the 1958 finals against Brazil. Four years later, Chile, which likely would not have qualified for the championship were it not the host, finished in third place. England too, a perennial quarterfinalist, won the trophy at home in 1966, but has only reached the semifinals one other time. So hosting the Cup and finishing sixth, as Mexico did in 1970, should be seen as a lost opportunity. But in placing Mexico on the world stage, hosting the Cup promised—and in part delivered—much.
The Mexico
team that contested the World Cup in 1970 hoped for better. A strong side, the
team raised expectations with a slate of games in early in the year. From
February until April Mexico played twelve matches, winning five, drawing five,
and losing only two. With one exception, all of the matches were against teams
that had qualified for the World Cup. And Mexico started the tournament well,
if uninspired, with a goalless draw against the Soviet Union. From there,
things began to look up. The Tricolor followed this match with two victories,
over El Salvador and Belgium, to qualify for the knockout phase of the tournament
for the first time. It was no small achievement. The team advanced with a
certain amount of panache, scoring five goals and allowing none. And the
quarterfinal match against Italy, played in Toluca, got off to a flying start
for the Mexican team, as the Tricolor took the lead in the twelfth minute.
Footage of the game shows the team celebrating the goal along with delirious
fans. The joy would be short-lived. In the twenty-fifth minute, Italy scored,
deflating the stadium’s energy. In the second half Italy scored three more,
ending Mexico’s World Cup dreams.
But the
hopes born from the 1970 World Cup related to more than soccer. Rather, as it
had with the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, the Mexican government had hoped to use
a world sporting event to project the image of a developed and modern Mexico.
Both events highlighted Mexico’s ability to plan a worldwide event and, to
paraphrase historian Eric Zolov, temporarily replaced the myth that Mexico was
a land of mañana—where nothing got
done—with the notion that it was the land of tomorrow, where anything was
possible. All of the advance planning for 1968, however, came to naught. The Mexico
City Olympics are remembered not for the transformation of the capital city
into a gleaming, friendly, modern metropolis, but for the massacre of student
protesters in the Tlatelolco square and the black power salute of Tommie Smith
and John Carlos. (3) By contrast, though the Mexican soccer team failed to make it past the
quarterfinals in 1970, Mexico scored high marks for hosting one of the most
memorable World Cups. Indeed, for Mexican commentators, the Cup suggested the
country’s potential to enter the ranks of developed nations. It represented, in
other words, a promise for the future.
1986 and 1990
Within
years, however, that promise evaporated in the midst of the boom and bust cycle
of the Mexican economy. Economic growth in the decade was offset by rampant
inflation and the oils crisis. Discovery of new oil reserves in the 1970s led
to higher government borrowing, and when the price of oil plummeted, the
Mexican economy collapsed. Yet, in the midst of the “lost decade”, as the
economic crisis of the 1980s is known, Mexico hosted another mega event. The
World Cup in 1986 was supposed to be held in Colombia, but missed construction
deadlines and a simmering civil conflict caused the country to renege on its
organizing responsibilities. FIFA reopened bidding for the right to host, and
Mexico beat out bids from the United States and Canada. In so doing, Mexico became
the first country to host the cup for the second time, causing a surge in
nationalist pride and raising spirits in the midst of financial gloom.
Moreover, the Mexican government invested millions of dollars to present the
country as modern and developed once again.
In the year
before the tournament, Mexico’s soccer star shone brightly even as its economy
teetered. Throughout 1985 the team appeared nearly invincible, losing only four
of twenty-two games. Mexican hopes for a strong showing at the World Cup seemed
attainable; a good showing in soccer would doubtless buoy the national
sentiment. And then, disaster struck. On the morning of September 19, 1985,
eight months before the World Cup was to begin, an 8.0 magnitude earthquake
struck off the west coast. Between 10,000-40,000 people died and thousands of
buildings were damaged in Mexico City alone. But none of the twelve existing
stadiums had been damaged by the quake and all of the new structures built for
the event had also escaped damage. Nevertheless, Mexico found itself having to
run a World Cup in the midst of a massive reconstruction effort, just as Chile
had done twenty-four years earlier. Strong aftershocks, over 7 on the Richter
scale, could still be felt one month before the tournament began.
The 1986
World Cup is remembered mainly for the audacity of Diego Maradona. In the
quarterfinal match against England he scored two goals: the infamous “hand of
God” goal and also his stunning run through the entire British defense to score
what many say is the greatest goal of all time. But there are other stories
from that Cup: Mexico’s disallowed goal in the quarterfinal against Germany;
Manuel Negrete’s beautiful goal, which would have been the best of the
tournament had it not been for Maradona. Here is another. The Mexican team took
the field for its first game in the 1986 World Cup at the Estadio Azteca in
front of over 100,000 fans. As Hugo Sánchez, Tomás Boy, Manuel Negrete, and the
rest of the Tricolor stood waiting for the national anthem to start, the sound
system failed. Instead, the majority of the fans serenaded the national team.
As a result
of its excellent outcomes in the lead up to the World Cup, expectations for the
Mexican team were high. Hugo Sánchez, then a 28-year old phenomenon, had just
won his second consecutive Spanish league scoring title (pichichi) with Real
Madrid, and he led a formidable team. And they performed well. Belgium posed no
threat, with Mexico taking a 2-0 lead and holding on to win 2-1. A rough game
against Paraguay ended in a 1-1 draw, and Mexico navigated around a weak Iraq,
1-0. For only the second time, Mexico was through to the knock out stages.
There, el Tri would meet Bulgaria, waltzing to a 2-0 win. In the quarterfinals,
a hard fought match against eventual runner-up West Germany showed Mexico’s
grit and determination. The game ended in a 0-0 draw—with a goal by Mexico
controversially disallowed—with Germany winning on penalty kicks. Once again,
Mexico’s soccer promises had gone unfulfilled.
Yet the
future appeared to bode well. They could not fail to build off the experience
and improve their performances by the time that Italy hosted the next Cup in
1990. Indeed the 1990 competition was supposed to be a coming out party for
Mexico: Sánchez would be 32, hardly an old man, while Negrete would just be 31.
More, younger players like Carlos Hermosillo and Alberto García Aspe would be
ready to take over. And the team wanted to prove that 1986 had been no fluke.
The promise of the generation, of Mexican soccer finally arriving as a force to
be reckoned with, awaited fulfillment. It was not to be, due to the
machinations of the Mexican Fútbol Federation.
The cachirules scandal is one of the biggest to ever hit a national
team involving not so much players as the highest heights of Mexican soccer. In
1988, during the qualification process for the 1989 Under-20 World Championship
in Saudi Arabia, the Mexican newspaper Ovaciones
published an article accusing the youth team of using over aged players. At
first, Mexican soccer officials denied the charges. But the Mexican press continued
to run stories about the case, and was only too happy to oblige when federation
president Rafael del Castillo demanded to see proof. The journalists disclosed
that the FMF’s own age registry showed that at least four of the players were too
old to play. Two players exceeded the limit by two years, one by three years,
and the fourth was seven years older than he claimed. The scandal grew. Other
national soccer federations demanded that CONCACAF take decisive steps to
punish Mexico. CONCACAF’s disciplinary panel decided to ban the Mexican team
from the Saudi tournament and imposed lifetime bans on the FMF executive
council members. (4)
Hoping for
a more favorable hearing in front of the FIFA disciplinary board, del Castillo
appealed the ruling to Zurich. There, however, he received a harsher rebuke.
Instead of earning a reprieve for the Mexican youth team, FIFA banned all Mexican teams from FIFA tournaments
for two years and upheld the ban on the FMF executive council. Mexico, with a
stunningly talented squad, would miss the 1988 Olympics in Seoul—for which they
had already qualified—and the 1990 World Cup in Italy. Both Mexican soccer fans
and commentators around the world had expected the team to challenge for the
cup. Hugo Sánchez, fresh off tying the Spanish record for goals in a season
(38) for Real Madrid, would be back. Carlos Hermosillo, who had scored 24 goals
the previous season in the Mexican leagues, was on the squad. With that tandem
Mexico would have been difficult to stop, a fact that they proved in the year
prior to the tournament. While el Tri had been banned from official
tournaments, it could still play friendly matches. Prior to the World Cup,
other teams sought games with the talented Mexican squad to warm up against
quality opposition. Mexico played five teams headed to Italy: Argentina, the
reigning world champion; Colombia; South Korea; the United States, and Uruguay.
El tri won all five of these games. Another promise unfulfilled.
Et tu?
So where does this leave us going
into the last matches of the hexagonal? I would suggest that it leaves fans of
the tricolor in an all too familiar place: waiting for disappointment. For all
the promise of the Tricolor, Mexican soccer fans are used to teams failing to
reach their potential. The generation of Hugo Sánchez and Carlos Hermosillo was
supposed to go farther than the quarterfinals and then lost its chance at
redemption in 1990 due to an inept and corrupt bureaucracy. So too the 1994 edition
of the squad (with Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Luis Hernández, and Jorge Campos)
promised Mexican greatness. Indeed, this seems to be the narrative of Mexican
soccer history and Mexico itself: destined for greatness that, sometimes
through no fault of its own, remains just out of reach. And now the hopes of
the so-called golden generation—with established players like Chicharito, dos
Santos, Salcido, and Rafa Marquez and the newer additions such as Marco Fabian,
Javier Aquino, Hiram Mier and Miguel Layún—hang by the slimmest of threads. At
the start of qualification, many Mexicans believed that this team represented
the best chance that el Tri had to finally bring home the World Cup and to show
that Mexico could compete on the world stage. Now they have to wait to see:
will this group of players salvage the campaign and qualify, or will it collapse
under the pressure of expectation.
Anthropologist
Roger Magazine has suggested that Mexico lacks a “prominent national mythology”
about the national soccer team. Mexicans, he argues, “closely scrutinize the
performance of the national team” but do not use it as a measuring stick for
the nation. (5) This may indeed be true. But perhaps this curiosity, the lack of investment in
the team, comes from the expectation that the Tricolor will fall short of its goals. Just
as the national mythology that glorifies the Revolution as an equalizing force
has never fully delivered on its promises, so too the Tricolor flatter to
deceive. In other words, like the nation itself, Mexican soccer offers
perpetual promise and unfulfilled potential.
* If Mexico loses there is still a slight chance that it
could qualify for the intercontinental playoff, but it would be highly
unlikely. It would need to defeat Costa Rica in Costa Rica and overtake either
Panama or Honduras (or both) on goal differential.
** I admit to being a huge Pablo Barrera fan. Though he has
not featured regularly in the national set-up since a knee injury in 2012, and
is never the flashiest of players, he has a certain intangible quality and
toughness that Mexico has lacked of late. Moreover, the team plays better when
he is on the field. Since 2009 in games that matter (tournaments and
qualifiers) with Barrera on the pitch: 14-1-2. In 2013 with Pablo: 1-0-1;
without: 0-4-2.
1. Manuel Seyde, in Greco Sotelo, Crónicas
del fútbol mexicano, volumen 3: El oficio de las canchas (1950-1970), (Mexico
City: Editorial Clio, 1998), 14; and Ramón Márquez C., “Introducción,” in
Carlos Calderón Cardoso, Crónicas del
fútbol mexicano: Por amor de la camiseta, volumen 2 (1933-1950), (Mexico
City: Editorial Clio, 1998), 10.
2. There is some debate about the tour. RSSSF, the statistical database for
soccer, shows that the tour took place in early January 1923 and that Mexico
lost one game 3-1. Galindo and Hernández, however, claim that the tour occurred
in December 1922, and that Mexico won two games and tied one. See Galindo and
Hernández, 49; and http://www.rsssf.com/tablesm/mex-intres.html.
On the 1930 World Cup, see Galindo and Hernández, 65-66.
3. Eric Zolov, “Showcasing the ‘Land of Tomorrow’: Mexico and the 1968 Olympics,” The Americas 61:2 (October 2004), 163.
See also Keith Brewster and Claire Brewster, “Cleaning the Cage: Mexico City’s
Preparations for the Olympic Games,” The
International Journal for the History of Sport 26:6 (April 2009), 790-813;
and Kevin B. Witherspoon, Before the Eyes
of the World: Mexico and the 1968 Olympic Games (DeKalb: Northern Illinois
University Press, 2008).
4. "Los Cachirules: Escándalos Deportivos,” Televisa
Deportes, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so1gW3LuClg,
accessed December 20, 2011; Leon
Krauze, Crónicas del fútbol mexicano
(volumen 5): Moneda en el aire (1986-1998), (Mexico City: Editorial Clio,
1998), 28-29; “Caso ‘cachirules’: negro recuerdo,” El Universal (April 20,
2008), http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/deportes/99513.html,
accessed December 20, 2011.
