Things to ponder as Diego Cocca prepares for the summer that will make or break his tenure
What to make of the recent happenings surrounding El Tri and Mexican football
Here we are, hours after Chucky Lozano won a Serie A with Napoli. It’s an impressive feat, even if his individual stats don’t resonate. What’s a bit alarming is that the knee injury he sustained in today’s game might prevent him to participate in Diego Cocca’s massive Nations League and Gold Cup games.
Because Cocca will be put to the fire after playing two official games — against Suriname and Jamaica — and a money-grabbing friendly in Arizona. He hasn’t had proper time to add his identity and philosophy to the national team, yet the overall feeling is that this summer will determine if he will keep his job as México manager.
His appointment as El Tri manager was brash, ugly, just look at how Tigres announced his immediate departure from their coaching seat. It happened so quick, although the notion is that certain dueños in the Mexican game had Cocca as their no. 1 choice.
But heck if you see all those zeros from Tigres’ coaching offer, who wouldn’t agree to it when El Tri was taking forever to make it official.
Jesús Martínez said it perfectly this week during his appearance in Fútbol Picante: Cocca didn’t fit the type of profile México deserved as it prepares to host its third World Cup. He made sure to point afterwards, though, that Cocca deserves the support as he looks to get El Tri back to the top in Concacaf.
But that remains to be seen.
It’s a pretty crazy moment right now when you think about it. There’s Mexican baseball players having fantastic starts to their MLB season, Checo keeps battling for the top place in the F1, Mexican music has never been so global as it is today, and Canelo hosted a pretty damn royal homecoming in Guadalajara. There’s a lot of Mexican personalities that are excelling, meanwhile Mexican fútbol is in this downward spiral, and it’s very difficult to pinpoint what could potentially stop it.
I think it’s important to separate individual successes to collective ones. What Memo Ochoa has achieved in Italy is his personal win. Same goes with Chucky who became the first Mexican to win the Scudetto.
Santi Giménez becoming the top goalscorer in the Eredivisie will be a huge individual win.
What these cases scream is that Mexican football is not horrible. Mexican football’s issue is that it has never had proper organization and direction to guide its growth.
Cocca’s biggest task in the upcoming weeks is to find ways for his national team to ride this Mexican wave that’s clearly exceeding expectations. These individual wins in so many areas should be applauded and create a sense of pride.
Tata Martino made the huge mistake of not taking Santi Giménez to the World Cup, and look how Santi has responded, with goals and impeccable actions. Cocca can’t make those same fuck-ups because he has so much on the line this summer.
Everything goes back to the root of the issue, Cocca isn’t a bad manager, I just think he didn’t fit the bill for the type of manager México needs right now.
Let’s hope these individual wins will create some semblance of a collective win in the summer.