For the first time since 1986, Mexico City will be the site of the opening match of a FIFA men\u2019s World Cup when the 2026 edition kicks off, but it will be even more poignant than the one from 40 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This opener will actually include Mexico’s national team, as the one back in 1986 had then-defending champions Italy taking on Bulgaria. Expect plenty of emotion, but now it is time to remove the sentiment and dive into the team’s 26-man roster. Javier\u00a0“El Vasco” Aguirre (a member of Mexico’s 1986 squad) is in his third managerial stint with\u00a0El Tri. Pundits and supporters alike are hoping that playing co-hosts and having the support on home soil will play a significant role towards a successful campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And when I say “home soil” I\u2019m also including the U.S. because the team’s support is arguably, distinctively unrivaled. Guadalajara or Los Angeles, CDMX or Dallas\u2014it doesn\u2019t matter. M\u00e9xico’s players will always have vibrant and loud support at any of their games, either here or there.<\/p>\n
Here are my takeaways:<\/p>\n
(Photo by Agustin Cuevas\/Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n Aguirre works as something of a crisis-solver. His management is akin to “The Wolf” \u2013 Harvey Keitel\u2019s character\u00a0<\/i>from\u00a0Pulp Fiction \u2013 <\/i>where he enters a problematic situation and fixes it.\u00a0<\/p>\n For the 2002 World Cup, M\u00e9xico was on the brink of bowing out of qualification and Aguirre stepped in, confirming a spot and even winning the group before losing to its arch-nemesis, the United States, in the knockout stages. For 2010, once again, Aguirre replaced the late Sven G\u00f6ran-Eriksson halfway through the poor qualifiers and rescued El Tri, taking them once again to the promised land before eventually losing in the Round of 16 to Argentina.<\/p>\n For this World Cup, he has adopted a grueling training camp where preparations have been ongoing, including controversially pulling players away from domestic campaigns. Aguirre wants to give them what he went through as a player back in the aforementioned 1986 tournament, where brotherhood-and-blue-collar-like mentality took center stage. Of course, it helped to have the legendary Hugo S\u00e1nchez. But you get my point.\u00a0<\/p>\n Aguirre wants M\u00e9xico to be made of steel for this tournament, which will hopefully push them through any kind of obstacle, no matter the opponent. The objective? If you ask any Mexico fan, it\u2019s quite simple really.\u00a0<\/p>\n To reach the infamous\u00a0quinto partido<\/i> (fifth match) \u2014 or sexto<\/i> partido<\/i> in this case due to the expansion of the tournament with an extra round \u2014 as Mexico has not reached the quarterfinals of a World Cup since \u2014 yup, you guessed it, 1986. Aguirre is hoping to change that.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n (Photo by Yair Gonzalez\/Jam Media\/Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n There was never any doubt that the dynamic duo of R\u00e1ul Jim\u00e9nez and Santiago Gim\u00e9nez were going to be called up, but the bigger question is: can they play together? Or is this an out-and-out battle for the No. 9 role?\u00a0<\/p>\n Aguirre has used them both before, including the successful Gold Cup run from last summer, as Jim\u00e9nez often drops deeper whilst the AC Milan man infiltrates the box, feeding from his partner. But if you ask me, I think this should be an either-or situation, because M\u00e9xico is at its best when there is a 4-3-3 philosophy with one target man feeding off supply.<\/p>\n In addition, Gim\u00e9nez has gone through an injury-ridden season with AC Milan, so his starting role is not guaranteed. There is also a great weapon on the bench with Chivas forward Armando ‘La Hormiga’ Gonz\u00e1lez, who is a goal-scoring machine in Liga MX. And don’t forget Qui\u00f1ones, who could be most in form of them all.<\/p>\n Whatever the case, there is hope for Aguirre that all these weapons will compliment each other and eventually create a dynamic unit of goalscoring. Veremos<\/i>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY For the first time since 1986, Mexico City will be the site of the opening match of a FIFA men\u2019s World Cup when the 2026 edition kicks off, but it will be even more poignant than the one from 40 years ago.\u00a0 This opener will actually include Mexico’s national team, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}