🇲🇽 Gold Cup Daily: The Lamborjimmy hits its first bump
Mexico can't get it done v. Qatar PLUS: Group A thoughts & Tuesday's slate
Any thrill can only last so long. Roller coasters are fun, but eventually you want to get off. It’s cool to be in a sports car, but at some point you have to slow down.
Nobody will be ready to totally bail out of the “Lamborjimmy”, as fans christened new manager Jimmy Lozano’s Mexico team1, but it hit its first speed bump Sunday night with a 1-0 loss to Qatar.
Nobody expected the ride to always be smooth. Mexico fans have white-knuckled through enough twists and turns to know how this would go. But it’s precisely that experience that will concern El Tri fans.
On Sunday, this team looked a lot like the team we saw under Diego Cocca.
Mexico dominated the game. Lozano and his staff prepared the group for exactly what Qatar would do. But the warning lights for Mexico’s two biggest issues once again were flashing: The team can’t finish and its lack of finishing means that any calamitous defensive error individually turns into a problem everyone has to deal with.
“The game was really weird,” Lozano said after. “It’s a bit of the same thing that happened to us in the last game.
“I think we stalled out a bit to put it one way, we didn’t generate as many chances as we wanted but there were some really, really clear chances for Santi, for Edson, maybe one from Diego, I think there were six or seven clear chances that in any other game would’ve gone in and today we end up with a loss. I don’t know if it’s deserved but one that really bothers and hurts us.”
Now, after a few days of cruising, Lozano has to go under the hood and see if he can figure out how to fix that rattling sound that the last several experts couldn’t.
“I think the most complicated thing is sticking to the game plan, and I think that started happening before we conceded today as well. That’s where we need to focus our attention the most. Fortunately, we have several days to work,” the manager said.
It has to be a strange sensation, losing in that way in a game when the team had rested players, tried to protect players on yellow cards and still did enough to win - but didn’t. That sensation, though, could happen in the World Cup, keeping Mexico from reaching the goals it so long has sought after.
This could be the wake-up call Lozano and his players needed, a reminder that soccer isn’t straight-forward and will often demand your best. Or it could be alarm bells ringing that will be ignored, with the problem not able to be solved by anyone with the current Mexico player pool.
Whatever the case, the thrill is gone for the moment. It’s on Mexico to work out how to restart the ride.
Group A-lls Well That Ends Well
No real surprise in Group A, maybe other than just how dominant the U.S. was against Trinidad and Tobago in a 6-0 win.