11 Thoughts: The art of the style, feel-good stories and El Tri's U-20 preparations
On "Nacho" Ambriz's León victories, the Rockets' playing style and the Jona-El Tri U-20 conundrum
We’re getting to that point of the 2018-19 season, in which a lot of things are coming to an end. It’s crazy to think that the World Cup was last year, and right now we’re setting our sights on the Champions League and Europa League finals coming up, plus the Gold Cup. But in Mexico, the next days are set to be filled with anxiety as only seven points separate the league’s 12th place, Santos, and 4th place, Cruz Azul. With two regular season games left, a lot of position shifts can still happen. The ending of el torneo regular will be a good barometer to measure how the final eight will head into the Liguilla. Right now, we have a Tigres-América in the quarterfinals. Not bad.
11 Thoughts
1. I’m going to start with a curveball. On Monday morning, I read Diego Torres’ piece on PSG winning another league title after another fiasco in Champions League. Torres’ lines on Kylian Mbappé’s season are interesting to think about, especially since he has scored 30 times in 27 league games. His great level of play is unquestionable; however, there’s reason to wonder how his career could be at another club in England or Spain. What he achieved in the World Cup was fantastic; he got a lot of people out of their seats, whether they were newcomers to the game or not. Everyone witnessed the start of what will be a prodigious career, but how much will affect him the fact that he will still remain with PSG? Because he’s clearly ready to be the protagonist of the game’s biggest moments. How many of those big moments are PSG going to help him be part? It’s already two seasons with quick exits from Champions League play, preventing Mbappé from providing those highlights from the World Cup in European competition. Respect to Mbappé, who firmly believes that he can lead PSG to be a force to be reckoned with in Champions League, but it still looks like a long-shot. His case also shows how European football has changed in the last five years because when you look how quick his rise has been, and what he has achieved at Monaco, PSG and Les Bleus, it’s rare not to see him at one of England or Spain’s main clubs. It’s a special case, without a doubt.
2. Best offense, best defense, league’s most dominant player, league’s best Mexican striker, best combination of youth and experience, 12 straight 2019 Clausura wins and best visiting record; it’s Club León. Ignacio Ambriz’s León. It took a while, but Ambriz is living the season that will mark him for the rest of his coaching career. All the technical and tactical decisions he’s putting into place are working together to produce some of the most dynamic football Liga MX has seen in recent years. And although a lot will be said if León doesn’t lift the league title next month, it’s important to note how far Ambriz has come in order to be relishing this precise moment. Let’s not forget that Ambriz already knows what it means to manage a club like Chivas or América. With Las Águilas, he defeated “Tuca” Ferretti’s Tigres in a Concachampions final. I’ve always wondered how those years as “Vasco” Aguirre’s assistant manager at clubs like Osasuna and Atlético de Madrid shaped him as a leader. How those experiences, living in Spain and competing in La Liga, helped him become a more prepared manager. I don’t see that many Mexican managers with that substantial experience, yet there have always been doubts placed on Ambriz. At América it was obvious that constant questioning on whether he had the curriculum to be their coach, and even though he faced many fires, he never backed down.
3. When we look at Miguel “Piojo” Herrera’s coaching career and how many lost finals and semifinal exits it took him to finally win it all, I think that’s the best example of how Mexican managers are supposed to picar piedra to one day reach the top of the mountain. Ambriz is 54, while Herrera is 51. They’re almost around the same age, and we’ll soon find out if León is to Ambriz what América is to Herrera. No one will deny that Herrera has developed a profound attachment with los azulcremas, but we have to note that the attachment solidified with silverware. Ambriz is nearing that moment, so close, yet so far, when you realize that the Liguilla is a new season. The magic of Ambriz is that he found the right mix of players; he adapted to the squad he had available, and they’re responding with some unprecedented numbers. Come on, Ángel Mena has 14 goals and nine assists! That’s fucking dominant! What Ambriz is living is spectacular, and he deserves every single bit of it.
4. We finally know the 21 players that will represent El Tri in the upcoming U-20 World Cup in Poland.
With Diego Lainez and José Juan Macías leading this generation, El Tri is already preparing for the big event, which will begin in late May. However, one of the notable absentees in Diego Ramírez’s final roster was Monterrey’s Jonathan González. I feel it’s important to view this decision from different perspectives. Let’s start with Monterrey’s. Although Jona only has four Liga MX starts with Diego Alonso’s side this season, his presence in the team is equally as important as Celso Ortíz’s. Just to get an idea, Jona started five of Monterrey’s seven Concachampions games this year. The only games he missed are the ones against Sporting Kansas City in the U.S., and the first-leg of the Final Regia on Tuesday night. In a club so desperate to win titles like Monterrey, every member of the squad is crucial. Alonso knows that Jona could become an important part of his starting XI in any given moment. The Uruguayan feels that he can’t let him go just as the Liguilla gets underway. Now, let’s see the other part of the story. Ever since Jona decided to play for El Tri, he’s been in constant search of making his presence felt in the national team’s procesos. Last year, he had no problem in joining El Tri’s U-21, which took part in the Toulon tournament. It was a successful tournament for players like Lainez, Jona, Roberto “Piojo” Alvarado, César Montes, Carlos Vargas, Jorge Sánchez and Eduardo Aguirre, just to name a few. This U-20 World Cup was another opportunity to make his presence felt in the proceso, especially with players like Lainez and Macías involved in the making, of what Ramírez, hopes will be a good run in the World Cup. Unfortunately, timing issues, I think, have prevented one of El Tri’s brightest U-20 players from playing in the World Cup.
5. During Ramírez’s presser when he announced the final U-20 roster, he was straightforward to point out that he wanted to only talk about those players who did make the roster, not those who missed out. Two names that were brought up were Vargas’ and Jona’s, and Ramírez took the time to explain the why of Jona’s omission, not Vargas’. As we see this table that @sub23mx shared on Twitter, we can take note of which players have more First Division experience and which don’t. Overall, the list is alright, but the inclusions of Vargas and Jona would have boosted that first-division experience.
Lainez and Macías are the attackers with most experience, Jona would have been the midfielder with most experience, and Vargas the defender with most experience. It would have been a nice balance for Ramírez’s team. I go back to this first-division experience a lot because Edson Álvarez told me in 2017 how crucial that experience would have been for El Tri’s U-20 side that reached the quarterfinals. Here’s the interview, where he reflects on how that experience could have made the difference. "I always tried to encourage my teammates, support them, show or transmit to them my bits of first-division experience," he said. "It was important to have this experience because you would see teams like France, which had a starting XI that included nine players who were already starters at their first-division clubs. So I feel they have to give [the young players] more trust, but every club acts differently. There's a lot of talent." Hopefully, the talent, that has yet to debut in Liga MX, will give positive results to Ramírez’s World Cup team.
6. With two games to go until the Liguilla commences, Puebla is in the Liguilla race. Chelis, alongside “Ruso” Zamolginy and Octavio Becerril, have the team competing against Liga MX’s best sides. It’s encouraging to hear that the club is strongly working on solidifying their youth teams. It’s also positive that they returned to the original crest, although I’d like to see the stars of past league championships somewhere around it, just to serve as a reminder of past glories. I’m still confused as to why Chelis and his coaching staff are wearing jackets with the old crest in their Liga MX official pictures, but that’s another story. Ultimately, the key for Puebla is not reaching the Liguilla, which don’t get me wrong it would be amazing if they do, but the main objective moving forward should be to continue developing a strong project, so they can keep winning the crowd. For TV viewings, the Friday night games have worked, not so much for attendance. But I’m pretty sure a lot of people will tune in to the Puebla-Tigres coming up, but there’s something about noon games on Sundays, or even 2 p.m. kickoffs in Puebla. Hopefully, next season, they try that possibility and see if it increases the attendance.
7. During my first spell in México, I had a chance to cover a several of the Concacaf Champions League finals. They always bring back great memories. The one I experienced every single bit of it was the Pachuca-Tigres final, and similarly to the Final Regia that’s going on right now, Tigres hosted the first-leg of the series. They drew 1-1 and went on to lose 1-0 in Pachuca. It was a tight final, where Pachuca’s goalkeeper, Alfonso Blanco, made spectacular saves, as Marcelo Barovero did this week. Although it’s been two years since that final, it’s alarming how difficult it is for Tigres to get a positive result at home, at the very least, a 1-0 win. There’s no doubt that Monterrey has had a great run in this year’s Concachampions; eliminating Atlanta United and Sporting Kansas City the way they did can’t be ignored. The flow is on Rayados’ favor, and Tigres will go to BBVA Bancomer with the hope of repeating the second-leg of the 2017 Apertura final, where they got a 1-2 victory. This time around, though, a 1-2 win wouldn’t be enough to win in regular time. Next week, I’ll try to plug in more CCL final points.
8. The other day I was watching the Rockets’ Game 4 in Utah. The Rockets lost 107-91, and one of the main takeaways from that defeat is how they trusted their style. Because the Rockets’ style is the principle reason why they are where they are. At times, it does become frustrating to see them shoot three after three and miss them. There was a passage in the third quarter where I counted like seven 3’s in a row missed. “Can’t they try something else?” I asked. I don’t know, maybe, try to go to the paint to get some contact in order to shoot free-throws, but I’ve been thinking about it since then, and the answer I come away with is that that’s their style. The art of maintaining and improving it is what has the Rockets as a leading candidate to go far in this year’s playoffs. Sometimes that push or desire to keep the style pays its dividends but sometimes, it stagnates, as has been the case with Betis in La Liga.
9. Diego Lainez played 20 minutes on Wednesday night in Valencia, where Betis lost 4-0 to Levante. Betis will not participate in European competition next season, unless there’s a miracle. What stands out in this negative run for Betis is how they lost consistency with their style. There’s been defensive errors, but there has also been an alarming amount of missed scoring opportunities, which prevented them from (possibly) getting better results along the way. It’s shocking to see this fallout because after what they showed last season, there was hope that they were going to take their play to the next level, but they have actually regressed. Manager Quique Setién has tried to formulate changes to the team’s tactical shape by switching players or adding more strikers to the formula, but none of these changes have improved their style. If Setién leaves at the end of the season, I’m intrigued to see how Betis’ style will change with the new manager. Because with Setién, you always saw the intention, or in other words, the manner which they wanted to play, but the results, mostly negative, have stagnated the team and placed serious doubts on the ideas Setién has been trying to implement.
10. I’ve talked to Omar Govea twice over the phone. What I took from both conversations is that he’s focused on achieving his dreams. He’s very clear on how he’s going to work for each of them. When he moved to Royal Antwerp, I thought his transition was going to be quick, that he was going to win over a starting role as he did at Royal Excel Mouscron. However, as noted in this interview by Marca Claro’s Daniel Reyes, his time at Antwerp hasn’t gone smoothly, but he’s finding his best form during the season’s most critical moment, the playoffs:
Govea shared that his passion for aviation and his dream to become a pilot after retiring. At this point in his career, he already knows how to speak English, French and Portuguese. Look forward on reading more about Govea’s upcoming games. I have no doubts that he’ll soon return to the national team picture.
11. Make sure to watch Game 6 of the Clippers-Warriors. The hustle of Patrick Beverley is hard to match; he’s like the Gennaro Gattuso of basketball.