El Tri’s summer disappointments go far, far beyond the coach’s name

By César Martínez ( @CesarKickoff)

There must be a connection between Mexico’s disappointment at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games and Mexico’s disappointments at this year’s FIFA Confederations Cup and Gold Cup. For although the Olympics are different from international soccer competitions, results in all of them help understanding how a given society relates to sport.

‘ Mexico’s miserable Olympics’ was a piece by Mexico-based journalist David Agren describing the mounting pressure on Mexican athletes as days went by and they were failing to live up to the expectations. Mexico ended up collecting five medals, standing way below other countries like Argentina, Colombia, Cuba... and Jamaica.

In fact, Jamaica more than doubled the amount of medals won by Mexico. Yes, Usain Bolt accounts for a part of the picture. But gold was also obtained by Elaine Thompson, Omar McLeod and others from the relay teams. In just a week during the summer of 2016, an island whose population is less than three millions got more Olympic gold than Mexico in the 21st century.

The latest disappointment to Mexicans by their national soccer team has come in the shape of a 1-0 defeat to Jamaica at the 2017 Gold Cup semifinals. Both squads had already met at the group stage, with the islanders showing great physicality and defensive organization. For all their technical quality, the Mexicans could neither open the score nor produce clear chances to do it.

Following disastrous defeats at FIFA tournaments against Chile and Germany, fans of El Tri have begun to wonder whether Mexican stars are stars indeed.

Mexico’s most promising bright young thing already plying his trade at the European game is Jesús Manuel ‘Tecatito’ Corona, a gifted winger who normally plays the Champions League with FC Porto. There is an image of him, however, struggling a lot against Chelsea FC in Stamford Bridge at the group stage of the 2015 edition: he was man-marked by French defender Kourt Zouma, tackled, harried, nullified, thoroughly neutralized.

‘Tecatito’ just couldn’t cope against Chelsea’s back-up defender (the usual starters are David Luiz, Gary Cahill and César Azpilicueta), just like the Mexican national soccer team couldn’t cope against the Jamaican yellow wall.

Perhaps Mexican soccer players can’t be dubbed elite soccer players yet because they aren't elite athletes yet. Like any other Olympic sport, soccer is comprised by the tactics element, the technical element and the physical element. El Tri might be a better side than the Reggaeboyz in one or two of those three elements, but the Reggaeboyz combined muscle with good organization to defeat superior technique.

In soccer, Jamaica isn’t an elite team. Chile and Germany are: they have all the three elements. But in athletics, Jamaica excels. Mexican sports teams and El Tri fans would do well in learning from these islanders how they did it to become world-class athletes. To learn that elite sport, soccer included, is more than simply bending the ball with virtue.