Diego Cocca, now a former Mexico national team coach, during this Sunday’s game against Panama.CANDICE WARD (Getty Images via AFP)
The bomb exploded. The Mexican Football Federation surprisingly fired Diego Cocca, the team’s coach, after more than four months in office. The glaring failure in technical management, the divided dressing room and the rush to get results have prompted the presidential commissioner Juan Carlos Rodríguez to sack him, and he also has the director of national teams, Rodrigo Ares de Parga, who is only 130 years old was old, dismissed in the prosecution.
Cocca’s fearful approach in the games he played didn’t please either the players or the specialists. The Argentine’s strategy was based on waiting for the opponent and playing the ball. He ruled out two promising players like Santiago Giménez (Feyenoord) and Johan Vásquez (Genoa) at peak times. The former Racing de Avellaneda and Atlas coach has three wins, three draws and one loss. It seemed like a good balance to cold eyes, but the team had no direction. The game that decided the Argentina coach’s future was a 3-0 defeat by USA in the Nations League semi-finals. The wound invaded the chosen few who threatened to compete in the next Gold Cup, which begins this Sunday.
“In the last week I have found many shortcomings: planning, logistics, operations and lack of leadership on many levels. The game against USA can be lost, there is always a risk because this is football and victory goes to one side or the other, [pero] What cannot be accepted is the way it was lost. They didn’t want to win from the start due to logistical decisions that created tensions between the group,” commented Juan Carlos Rodríguez, the presiding commissioner who was appointed to the position less than a week ago.
“In the end, not only was the game lost, but also the ability to react, the leadership on and off the field, the emotional control and the feeling of professionally wearing the jersey that at least this time nobody felt represented,” Rodríguez added in reference added to the chaotic match against USA, where soccer players César Montes and Gerardo Arteaga were ruled out due to frustration with the result.
Last December, the Mexican team were eliminated in the group stage of the World Cup in Qatar. The technical management was in the hands of Gerardo Martino. El Tata, which has suffered from instability for several years, gave Mexico one of its worst performances in more than 40 years. Martino never gave up on his ideals, such as signing Raúl Jiménez despite inactivity and an injury that threatened him, or choosing to leave out a striker with rhythm like Giménez.
The managers, then led by Yon de Luisa, let Martino’s contract expire after Qatar. It took them 60 days to “deep” analyze all the mistakes and they realized they needed to hire a coach who knew Mexican football inside out. In less than a week, Rodrigo Ares de Parga took charge of the national teams and hired Cocca, who had twice crowned Atlas. However, they left out other coaches with better CVs: Marcelo Bielsa, Jaime Lozano and Ignacio Ambriz. It was Grupo Orlegi, owners of Atlas and Santos, who suggested Cocca. That led to De Luisa’s resignation. “At this stage of decision-making, there was a lack of process, rigor and transparency in appointments,” admitted the manager, named La Bomba Rodríguez.
Jaime Lozano has been named backup coach for Mexico. Lozano, a benchmark in the UNAM Pumas, had a good career as a soccer player. He took over the coaching whistle and had his first big swing coaching the smaller Mexican teams. Under his leadership, El Tri won the bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics. “We have no more time to waste,” said Commissioner Rodríguez. Lozano will join the storm, dubbed the Mexico team, with player approval.
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