With the 2022 FIFA World Cup kicking off in 19 days, it’s time to explore the USMNT’s biggest rival – El Tri of Mexico.
Every day until November 20th, we’ll explore a different team represented in this year’s tournament, from Group A to Group H, including predictions about where they’ll end up.
Yesterday, we looked at Saudi Arabia, a team with high hopes and low chances in Group C. Today we’ll look at the first team competing for second place behind Argentina – Mexico.
Mexico
Group C
Nickname: El Tri, The Tricolor
Colors: Red, green, white
Location:
Coach: Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino (Argentina)
Top Players:
Goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa is a 37-year-old legend, stuffing USMNT shots for the last two decades. Héctor Herrera formerly of Atleti is a solid midfield veteran. Hirving Lozano is having a great season with Napoli, who just lost for the first time all season today. Jesús Manuel Corona and Raúl Jiménez are also major threats for El Tri.
Team History:
Qatar will mark Mexico’s 17th World Cup appearance. They’ve made the quarterfinals twice, though they haven’t done so since 1986. Even though Canada has been on the rise, Mexico is traditionally the USMNT’s biggest rival in CONCACAF, which Mexico is 11-time champions of. El Tri has been up and down this year, losing to Uruguay, Colombia, and Paraguay since June.
Tournament Prediction: Group stage exit.
Group C will be a battle for second place because no team stands a chance against Messi’s Argentina in 2022. Mexico opens World Cup action against Poland, El Tri’s main competition for runner-up. Poland-Mexico is a bit of a toss-up that could go either way, but we think Poland might have a slight advantage with Robert Lewandowski. A loss to Poland followed by a loss to Argentina would only allow Mexico to pick up 3 points against Saudi Arabia before bowing out of Qatar.
Featured Image: Generated Image: DALL-E 2
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