Will it be three strikes and out for Mexico coach Hugo Sanchez? The Tricolores have already played the United States in the United States twice during Sanchez’s short tenure, yet for all his talk about how Mexico is the better team with the better players, the USA bested Sanchez’s Mexico in both meetings last year. The second loss, 2-1 in Chicago, was a particularly bitter pill to swallow for the former Mexico legend, as it came in the Gold Cup final.
Indeed, the U.S. has been a bogey side for El Tri in the last decade. Ricardo Lavolpe, Sanchez’s predecessor, was heavily criticized in Mexico for failing to beat the USA on American soil during his four years in charge. Ironically, Sanchez was one of Lavolpe’s loudest critics, so you must take it with a grain of salt when Sanchez tries to discount Wednesday’s friendly (9 p.m. ET, ESPN2) as just “another game,” adding that the true contests come against the likes of Argentina and Brazil.
Both U.S. coach Bob Bradley and Mexico’s Sanchez have called in the big names for this supposedly meaningless friendly. Sanchez has even pulled an about-face on his policy of not fielding naturalized players, having given a surprise call-up to Brazilian-born Antonio Naelson, better known as Zinha.