🇲🇽 Is Diego Cocca the manager El Tri needs now?
A safe pair of hands, perhaps, but the right man for the job?
In the next few hours, according to multiple reports, Mexico will name Diego Cocca the manager of the men’s national team.
Heck, maybe they’re trying to announce it right now but running into Twitter API problems.
It’s an abrupt switch for both Cocca, who currently is leading one of Liga MX’s three remaining unbeaten team, Tigres, and a federation which for the last several cycles has prioritized an aggressive style of play meant to emphasize the nation’s standout attackers.
But once the money is all agreed (and, reportedly, a connection with an agent that has at least one owner on the committee irritated), Cocca will be the manager.
What does Cocca have on other candidates? Beyond one report, which notes Cocca is more likely to sit and chat with a player about what they can improve instead of Pachuca boss Guillermo Almada’s more brusque style, Cocca feels safe.
Almada won the most recent Liga MX title, but Cocca won the two before that. He won the league with Racing in Argentina as well. It’s certainly fair to say the 50-year-old is a winner.
Maybe the federation decided that’s all it was worried about. If someone can beat Suriname and Jamaica in the Nations League and the United States and friends at the Gold Cup, what does it matter if they do anything else well?
An ex-defender, perhaps it’s not a surprise Cocca’s style relies on the back line, largely sitting back and finding attacks in transition moments.
“The team is ‘defensive’, but not in a boring way, with the press a key component of what Atlas tries to do with Julio Furch leading the line by trying to make life as uncomfortable as possible for the defenders who so often in modern soccer are trying to start the attack,” I wrote in December 2021 when evaluating that first championship Atlas team.
Mexico may have the personnel to pull it off. Cesar Montes, Johan Vasquez and Jesus Angulo (who was part of Cocca’s champions at Atlas) can form a stern line of three, and you can imagine Hirving Lozano flying forward on the counter-attack.
Cocca also is a manager who has hinted at making changes in the past, though even his current Tigres look somewhat familiar.
“The style of, “We’re going to win however we can” doesn’t exist. We’ve got to go look for a style that will be ours,” he said during his Tigres introduction. “I’m not going to do what I did at Atlas.
“Logically, I like a style of play, but what I like most is winning and we’re going to look to do that with the players we have and in the best way we can.”
Will Mexico fans who want to ganar, gustar and golear1 accept Cocca if he reverts to his typical style and puts a defensive Mexico team out against smaller Concacaf nations? Will they cheer his name after a suffered 1-0 win over a team like Honduras or Panama?
Some fans are willing to wait and see, but the initial reception has been frosty. Nestor de la Torre said he'll be a disaster, and one radio journalist is acting like this is out of nowhere.
Almost any time there’s a wait and then a domestic coach is hired, it feels a bit underwhelming.2 Was the committee aiming for some star name only to fall back on its third, fourth or fifth choice? If it was going to be Cocca, what the heck was that press conference about the other day? What was that 60+ day break for?
Cocca ends up being a hire without too much risk, a manager that knows Mexican soccer and doesn’t ruffle many feathers. He’s a boring hire for a federation where things are very rarely boring for more than a few days.
It’s not inspired. It’s not flashy. Mexico has a safe coach the federation hopes will be the right man for El Tri at the right time to rebuild confidence, establish a style of play it can use for years to come and win. If not, there’s the safety valve for El Tri that there’s plenty of time to switch gears before the 2026 World Cup.
Win, enjoy, score lots of goals
See the response to Berhalter, Gregg after nearly a year of anticipation
Sorry, Jon, for going off topic, but, basic question:
In the US, the FA (USSF) and top league (MLS) are separate entities, and our culture is so fun that at the slightest whiff of cooperation we get shouts of collusion! corruption!
As opposed to Mexico, where the people who control the top league are also exerting major influence over the FA, if not outright control.
My question is, how do those structures compare in the rest of Concacaf? (And Conmebol, if you know.) My guess is that more countries are closer to the Mexican model, but only because all the rest in Concacaf are way smaller than either and there is only so much pie to divvy up.