World Football's Biggest Underachievers

Mexico is a football obsessed Latin American nation of 130 million people the only nation larger than Mexico in Latin America is Brazil who are record five-time winners of the FIFA World Cup Argentina Brazil's southerly neighbors with roughly a third of the population of Mexico won their third world cup in 2022 and nestled in between Argentina and Brazil the second smallest country in the region Uruguay which has a population two and a half times smaller than Mexico's capital city have won the World Cup twice and the Copa America a joint record 15 times Mexico by contrast despite having the fifth most World Cup appearances trailing only Italy Argentina Germany and Brazil have never got beyond the quarterfinals they've only ever gotten that far on home soil and for the last 37 years Mexico failed to get further than the round of 16. following a staggering seven successive round of 16 exits between 1994 and 2018 known as the Kinto partido or fifth Gamecast in Mexico the spell was finally broken in Qatar though not in the way the Mexicans would have liked a draw with Poland and defeat against Argentina saw Mexico dumped out in the group stage of a World Cup for the first time since 1978. applying the cherry on the icing on top of a cake which was baked using raw sewage that was Mexican football in 2022.

on top of their worst World Cup showing in 44 years Mexico finished third in the concacaf Nations League behind Canada and the USA the Federation national team and top flights are all in a state of Perpetual crisis and Mexico haven't won any of their last six encounters with the United States which is viewed as a national humiliation in Mexico in a run dating back over two years Mexico's under-20s also failed to qualify for the 2023 under-20 World Cup the under-23s 11 years on from taking gold and just three years since winning bronze failed to even qualify for the 2 2024 Olympics and Mexico's women's team likewise failed to qualify for both the 2023 Women's World Cup and the 2024 Olympics it's a bleak outlook for one of the most football craze Nations on Earth long touted as sleeping Giants and future football powerhouses who would inevitably challenge for the World Cup at some stage just as soon as they had all of their ducks in a row Mexico now actually appeared to be regressing with their status as even a second-rate national team coming under threat so why on Mexico football powerhouses it's a topic that's always interested me so with Mexican footballer quite possibly its lower stab and the state of the sport Myron Scandal less than three years out from Mexico co-hosting the 2026 World Cup this seem like no finer time to take a closer look at why Mexico are arguably World football's greatest Underachievers which individuals and organizations are responsible for those failings and why this situation only seems to be getting worse in the introduction I compare Mexico very unfavorably it should be said with Uruguay Argentina and Brazil of course there is one major difference between Mexico and those three despite them all being Latin American nations Mexico is in North America rather than South America and consequently the Mexican Football Federation is a member of concacaf rather than comma bowl that slight geographical and administrative difference has had a huge impact upon the development of Mexican football while South America along with Europe has been a hotbed of the world's best players and teams North America has long been a bit of a black sheep within the global football Community Association football or soccer has historically played fifth fiddle behind the four other major league sports of American football baseball basketball and ice hockey in the United States hockey is practically a state religion throughout most of Canada with football barely having been even an afterthought until very recently there are split loyalties between football and Cricket throughout a lot of the Caribbean islands that were colonized by the British and even in those concacaf Nations where football is extremely popular such as Costa Rica Honduras and El Salvador small populations and a consequently small player pool can make it difficult for them to compete over three quarters of the population of all concacaf Nations combined live in either the United States or Mexico and the 22. 4 percent that don't a split between 39 different countries or members the end result is that Mexico is the sole significantly sized nation in which football is the dominant sport in a Confederation made up of minnows and one historically disinterested Giants consequently Mexico has long dominated the Confederation winning a record nine out of a possible 17 concacaf gold cups since the tournament's Inception in 1991 Mexican clubs have won 38 out of a possible 60 concacaf Champions League or Champions Cup titles whilst teams from No Other Nation of on more than six and it's also why Mexico despite never having got beyond the quarter-finals have qualified for the World Cup more times than World Cup winning Nations like Spain England and France the last time that Mexico missed a World Cup in 1990 it wasn't even because they failed to qualify but rather because they were banned for knowingly Fielding at least four overage players in their under-20 team in a controversy that became known as the cashier rulers scandal so being a big fish in a small pond has its upsides particularly financially which we will come on to but it also has some pretty significant downsides you need tough steel or stone in order to sharpen a knife and for all too long in concacaf Mexico have been sharpening their knife using marshmallows for decades Mexico sought out matches against stronger opposition in order to combat that problem appearing By Invitation at every copper America from 1993 to 2016 and playing loads of friendlies against the likes of Argentina Chile and Brazil in fact Mexico have played more games against Brazil despite being in different confederations than they have done against any national team other than Honduras Costa Rica and the United States still there's no substitute for the real thing and for that reason there has long been talk of Mexico joining combo or a further Instagram operation between the two confederations of concacaf and combo most notably in the case of the copper America centenario in 2016. the copper America centenario featured all 10 Common Ball Teams plus six concacaf nations and was actually hosted in the United States it proved to be an enormous success particularly financially hence why both confederations and most football federations themselves are Keen to see similar experiments and closer ties moving forward the great disincentive as far as the Mexican Football Federation is concerned is that even if joining combo were a viable option and there are several reasons why it wouldn't be doing so would make it significantly more difficult for Mexico to qualify for the World Cup which is a major Cash Cow for the Federation you might question what the point is of qualifying for every World Cup if you never have any hope of actually winning it and surely a long-term strategy of becoming a nation capable of competing with the world's best teams would be worth the risk of maybe failing to qualify once or twice and many Mexicans would agree with you but the Mexican Football Federation as you will soon discover a much more preoccupied with short-term Revenue gains than they are with the standard prospects or long-term state of Mexican football ironically though or counselor intuitively to this argument at least whilst the standard within concacaf has improved quite significantly in recent years most notably in the case of Canada who finished above Mexico and the United States in 2022 World Cup qualifying to qualify for their first World Cup since 1986 but also with the likes of Panama Costa Rica and Jamaica Mexico of only God and worse instead of having a fresh Challenger in Canada and they greatly improve United States for competition spurring them on it appears to have demoralized Mexico's national team who now face the very real prospects of falling behind the latter long term to continue the analogy from earlier on with the first bit of heart and stone that they have ever had to rub up against within concacaf rather than being sharpened Mexico's knife appears to have snapped one of the biggest criticisms of Mexican footballers and of the Mexico National team as a whole made by the Mexican press and Mexicans themselves is that they lack the psychological resilience and winning mentality required to go deeper tournaments speaking to Mexicans particularly about Mexico's so-called fifth game curse that ended in 2022 that is a critique which crops up time and time again far be it from me to disagree with people much closer to the ground on this issue but whilst there may be some truth in some instances of Mexican footballers having had mentality issues and a whole raft of scandals on the eve of major games and tournaments immediately spring to mind for a start I think that it is sorely lacking in terms of a broader critique of Mexico's inability to realize their potential within the sport the reality is that Mexico's players just aren't good enough it's not the Mexico go to tournaments and massively underachieve as someone from the outside looking in it's that they have second or third rate players and tend to get knocked out by better teams just take the most recent World Cup Mexico's worst performance at the tournament since 1978 as a prime example Mexico Drw their Opening match against Poland nelnell which is about what you would expect for two fairly evenly matched national teams and given the star power of Robert Lewandowski and Pietro jelinsky you could actually make a decent argument that on paper Poland ought to Avenged that game then they lost two nil to eventual tournament as Argentina which again is about what you would expect there isn't a single player from Mexico starting 11 in that game that would get into a combined Mexico and Argentina 11 and in their final group game they won 2-1 against Saudi Arabia who they are better than and who you would expect them to beat maybe if Mexico were lab-grown mentality monsters as Jurgen klopp puts it they might beat Poland or grind out a nil nil draw by putting 11 Men Behind the ball against Argentina progressing to The Knockout stage where they inevitably would just have lost a France in the round of 16 anyway but by and large Mexico performed exactly as any dispassionate Observer would expect the same was true in 2018 where Mexico lost 2-0 in the round of 16 against Brazil in 2014 where they lost two wants in the Netherlands in 2010 where they would have featured 3-1 by Argentina and in 2006 where it was Argentina once again who beat Mexico 2-1 after extra time you have to go back as far as the 2002 World Cup over 20 years ago to find a World Cup where Mexico had opt out by a national team that wasn't clearly Superior to them unbeaten in the group stage Mexico topped a group containing Italy and Croatia to tip a round of 16 tie with their concacaf Rivals and Northern neighbors the United States that is a game that on paper at that time Mexico probably ought to have won but outside of that a single 90 minutes over two decades ago if anything I would argue that Mexico was slightly overachieved based solely upon the quality of their players to have made the round of 16 so consistently up until 2022 Mexico beat Germany and South Korea at the 2018 World Cup they drew with Brazil and beat Croatia in 2014 they beat France and Drw with the house South Africa in the opening game in 2010 and Portugal were the only team to beat Mexico over 90 minutes in 2006.

I don't look at the caliber of Mexico's players at any of those tournaments and the results that they got and Come Away with the conclusion that the problem is a lack of winning mentality the biggest issue it seems clear to me at least is just that Mexico isn't producing players as talented as the country's demographics and passion for football suggest that they should so why is that the case well it's a bit of a funny one first and foremost there is a lack of access particularly in poorer and more rural areas in Mexico to recent coaching and Facilities we know for a fact that most footballers and most elite level footballers tend to come from poor and working-class backgrounds that is the case in Brazil that is the case in Argentina heck it's even the case in France Germany and England what the countries who are football powerhouses tend to do is identify those talented young players whatever their backgrounds and get them into academies at a young age where they can hone their skills in a proper setting it doesn't have to be from the age of eight or nine as is common in Europe now but from 14 or 15 you have to be playing against as good or better players on half decent surfaces in order for your development not to be stunted Mexican clubs and football institutions are absolutely hopeless at identifying those players and providing them with those opportunities partly throwing competence and their lack of resources but primarily through malice and a rig system I made an entire video a while back entitled the problem with U. S youth developments which Focus primarily on how in the United States the pay-to-play system adopted by most youth teams prevents kids from poor backgrounds from receiving formal training and the chance to develop regardless of their ability it is an act of extraordinary self-harm on the part of U. S football or soccer as a whole since so many talented players are allowed to slip through the cracks through no fault other than being born into a family of modest means and Mexico suffers from some of the same problems unlike in the US there aren't the same class distinctions when it comes to who plays football go down any Street in any residential neighborhood in Mexico and you are likely to find kids of all class backgrounds with a ball at their feet and a smile on their face the problem is in terms of scouting and opportunities a lot of young players will never even be seen by scouts or be put in front of a couch making a career in professional football practically an impossibility regardless of their talent and even of those who are discovered resources and connections can often outweigh what they can do with a ball at their feet the Persistence of pay to play either formally or implicitly is the biggest blight but corruption and nepotism also run Rife I was astonished when researching this video at the sheer number of stories of people who either knew of friends or family members or who themselves were either overlooked or released or somehow otherwise discriminated against for what we might kindly call non-football reasons nothing in this world is entirely meritocratic and I have made a whole video about nepotism in football but broadly speaking in most countries football is a lot more meritocratic than let's just say journalism politics or Investment Banking the less meritocratic the sport becomes though particularly in regards to the opportunities afforded to young players the less chance that a nation has got of ever being competitive it's not the case that Mexico's national team is comprised entirely of aristocrats and the wealthy offspring of oligarchs but those from impoverished backgrounds are distinctly underrepresented and that doesn't just happen by accident despite this act of self-sabotage Mexico still produces a large number of outstanding teenage footballers Mexico's under 17s have won each of the last five concacaf under 17 championships and two FIFA under 17 World Cups since 2005 not even Brazil have won as many under 17 World Cups or reached as many finals when it comes to 15 to 18 year olds the evidence is clear Mexico has among the best talent pools anywhere in the world the problem is what happens with their developments between the crucial ages of 17 or 18 to 20 to 21.

in League or MX Mexico has one of the biggest and most watched football leagues in the world measured by quality the league typically ranks around 10th or 11th in the world and even higher in terms of viewing figures and salaries only the Bundesliga La Liga and the Premier League can boast higher average attendances the likes of Tigres Monterey in Club America all average over 35 000 fans at their home games and Club America's record attendance in 2023 is bettered only by Manchester United in terms of Premier League teams the size of League Remax and particularly its Financial Muscle is both the strength and a weakness for Mexican football though in theory it's also provide a high standard of football and competition for the nation's players a fantastic breeding ground for young footballers and be the springboard for international success in reality young players are starved of opportunities due to a large number of foreign players the league's playoff system promotes mediocrity and the resources of the league and underhand deals between owners make it rare for young players to ever actually leave or test themselves in more competitive and higher quality leagues overseas the financial issues particularly for young players are twofold firstly at a very young age they are given enormous salaries in a relatively low income Nation the average salary in Mexico is about 820 a month or nine thousand eight hundred and forty dollars a year the average salary for a footballer playing in ligra MX is believed to be about forty thousand dollars a month or close to half a million dollars a year it is Little Wonder therefore that teenage footballers earning as much as 50 times their peers can sometimes get wrapped up in lifestyles of drinking partying and just generally getting up to things that aren't necessarily conducive to fulfilling their potential in their sport lots of once promising Mexican footballers have fallen by the wayside in such circumstances the second problem is that because they can earn so much money playing in league of MX and live like kings in a country where only a tiny number of people earn such riches they appeal to test themselves overseas is greatly reduced the most talented young Arjun sounds uruguayans and Brazilians are typically snapped up in their teens but Mexican wonderkids often prove to be much more tricky to this watch that's partly because they see little incentive to leave but even when they do want to test themselves in Europe or in other parts of the Americas their clubs make it near enough impossible for them to do so it's often said that Mexico has its own internal transfer market a little bit like people talk about Premier League tax inflating a player's valuation if they have already proven themselves in English football's top flights compared to in other leagues but at least the Premier League is the strongest league in the world so there is some justification for that inflation Liga MX though hugely popular and among the best leagues in the Americas is not the Premier League but the owners of League Remax Club still demand premium prices for every single one of their players that is their rate of course but the point is that it is likely to the detriment of Mexican players particularly young players and the future prospects of Mexico's national team what perhaps ought not to be that right is the so-called gentleman's pact between Liga MX clubs which saw owners secretly agree that their players aren't free to move even once their contracts have expired it effectively means that Mexico Co is the only major footballing Nation on Earth in which the Bosman rule doesn't exist those young players highly remunerated but stuck at their current clubs routinely see their development stunted by a lack of thirsting opportunities whereas it is typical to see 16 and 17 year olds get first team opportunities in Argentina and Brazil Mexican players often struggle to establish themselves at their Club sides until their early to mid-20s it's one of the reasons why Mexico had the second oldest Squad are both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups trailing only Costa Rica in 2018 and Iran in 2022 Liga MX teams are allowed to name 10 foreign players in their matchday squads and eight in their starting 11. roughly half of the League's players are now foreigners the number of foreign players in Liga MX has become a growing debate among Mexican football fans few take issue with the presence of foreign players in of themselves and almost all welcome talented players who raise the standard of the division and make it a more attractive lead to watch the issue is the number of mediocre players mostly from South America who moved to Mexico to earn more money than they could hope to anywhere else don't raise the standard and stifle first team opportunities for young Mexican players who might have a lot more potential from top to bottom Mexican football suffers from chronic short-termism and this is just one example of that instead of handing a young player from your own youth ranks who could become a future star for steam opportunities most Mexican clubs would rather play it safe and sign a 29 year old Argentine on twice the money who they hope will make fewer mistakes only two members of Mexico's 2011 under 17 World Cup winning Squad namely Alfonso Gonzalez and Mark Bueno now waste 28 and 29 when Sansa even when senior caps from Mexico and they have only won five caps between them it is a shocking misuse of and failure to develop talent and Julio Gomez who won the Golden Ball as the best player at that tournament joining fellow under 17 World Cup Golden Ball winners including the likes of SAS Fabregas Toni crows and Phil foden only ever played 21 games for Pachuca and 13 for Guadalajara and by the age of 25 he had retired from their sport the situation is so bad that Javier Hernandez and Raul Jimenez two players who were clearly more than good enough to play in League Remax reportedly considered quitting the sport in their early years due to the belief that they would never get the opportunity to prove themselves Jimenez was already 20 years old by the time that he made his first team debut having joined Club America at the age of 17. the standard of the league is also dragged down by Liga mx's format out of 18 teams in League MX 10 will qualify for the playoffs or Final Phase which ultimately decides the League's Champions it is a slight improvements on last season when 12 teams qualified but it still means that you can be mediocre or worse for most of the season and still end up being crowned as champions of League Remax to add to the lack of competition in 2020 liger MX suspended promotion and relegation for five years with some clubs driving for the move to be made permanent it's all part of a push by a handful of organizations who own almost all of Mexican football to safeguard their assets and look after their own interests it's an effort and a movement that we see throughout much of the football world but rarely the owners have such control and therefore rarely has it been as effective as there has been in Mexico of the 36 teams in Mexico's top two divisions roughly a third are controlled by just three ownership groups namely a Grupo Pachuca who own the likes of Pachuca and Leon Grupo Caliente who ownsia Juana and kataro among others and Grupo orleghi who owns Santos Laguna and Atlas in Mexico sporting hihon in Spain and have long been interested in acquiring a Premier League club the people involved in these multi-club ownership groups are extremely rich and Powerful Carlos Slim who owns 30 percent of Grupo Pachuca is the richest person in all of Latin America and the 11th richest in the world with a net worth of almost 100 billion dollars Ricardo Salinas who founded Grupo Salinas which owns Liga MX sad Mazatlan is the third richest person in Mexico with an estimated net worth of 14 billion dollars Salinas advocates for the permanent abolishments of promotion and relegation along with the firing of the three lowest ranked teams in Liga MX each season which replaced it and the implementation of financial play these handful of super rich owners own control and run all of Mexican football not the Mexican Football Federation who merely acts as lackeys to carry out their wishes and spokespeople for their big Ideas before taking the fall whenever any backlash arises yonda Louisa the former president of the FMF was the most recent person to do just that deciding not to run for re-election in May and replaced by Juan Carlos Rodriguez de Louisa was criticized for Mexico's catastrophic sporting performances on his watch but that was never the metric by which he was judged by his Masters de Louisa brought in a lot of money for the FMF so the regression of the Mexican national team is to be forgiven the startling greed of those who run Mexican football truly knows no bounds Mexico play more games in the United States than they do in Mexico because the Mexican diaspora population that lives in the United States of which there are an estimated 40 million people apparently have about seven times the disposable income of Mexicans living in Mexico for football fans in a lot of countries listening to this that will be hard to believe but for Mexicans it has become the norm normally when a national team plays most of their games in another country like Syria or Ukraine it is because their own country is ravaged by conflict not just because there is a bit more cash in playing somewhere else at every turn it seems like where Mexico ought to be seeking to emulate their much more successful Latin American peers they are instead moving closer and closer to a model adopted by the United States but they're not even effective in replicating that Mexican football is disorganized dysfunctional and deeply corrupt it is controlled by a cartel and there really isn't any better word to describe them of self-interested oligarchs who seem to care little about the fate of Mexican football at least Beyond how it can serve that Mexican football might not be working for the ordinary Mexican football fan who can see the culture of mediocrity in Liga MX despite its finances the lack of opportunities afforded to youngsters and the continued stagnation or regression of the national team but it works just fine for those who are in charge it's for that reason that it is hard to see anything improving in terms of the prospects of Mexican football anytime soon and indeed the only reforms currently being proposed by those with any kind of power would likely only make the situation that I've described even worse it is a sad State of Affairs for a country which in less than three years time will become the first in history to host three FIFA World Cups albeit is co-host this time on the other two occasions in 1970 and 1986 Mexico had their best ever World Cup performances reaching the quarterfinals on both occasions following Arjun sanjuo Tata Martino and Diego Cocker Mexico now of their first Mexican manager since 2015 in Jaime Lozano despite the fact that he's only 44 years old Lozano already has almost a decade of experience in management and looked at the start of the year like Mexico might appoint Marcelo the Elsa as their new head coach that move never materialized with the FMF claiming that the Elsa didn't know enough about Mexican football and Liga MX but many Mexicans suspect that the real reason is because firstly he was too expensive but more importantly he wanted too much control or at least more than the powers that be in Mexican football were willing to give up the powers that be makes it sound like some kind of grand conspiracy the reality is that they are just very rich and Powerful Barons who control a lot more in Mexico than just football Lozano restored some pride last month by winning the Gold Cup but the Gold Cup is a trophy which means little to Mexican football fans there is an assumption that the national team should win it and outcry when they don't the real test will come in 2026 where Mexico City Monterey and Guadalajara will all host games I'll along with Toronto Vancouver and 11 U.