🇲🇽 The people vs. the Mexico national team
On boos and boosterism. PLUS: The weekend preview goes to GDL
When the sports writers in Mexico analyzed El Tri’s Nations League 2-2 draw with Jamaica this week, they didn’t start with Bobby Reid beating Mexico’s midfielders to the ball on the opening goal, how new manager Diego Cocca set up the team, the ways Hirving Lozano was able to link with teammates on the left side of attack or anything tactical.
It was all about the boos.
The first two questions in the post-match news conference? Boos.
The debate on TV shows during the week? Boos.
The cover of newspapers? Boos.
…and storms. But mostly boos.
The biggest surprise seemed not to be that fans booed, but who they booed, with Guillermo Ochoa one of the victims of supporters’ discontent.
This is a Mexican goalkeeping legend who weathered a turbulent flight across the Atlantic to play in one match with the national team - and one who was beaten by a goal that maybe one other goalkeeper in the region gets to for the opener.
After the match, even before the boo-ha-ha started, Lozano pushed back.
“The problem is sometimes the press are the ones who affect that, the relationship between us and the fans,” Lozano told TUDN. “I think they have to support us. I’m just asking the fans to support us.”
All the chatter about whether or not boos and whistles are acceptable or who deserved what criticism obscures the fact that Lozano is right about one thing: The relationship between the Mexico men’s national team and its fan base is broken.
Pointing the finger at the media for that rift is unhelpful and inaccurate. Mexico’s press
Instead, the blame lies with the federation.
