Mexico and Tata ready for an encore against Paraguay
The Gerardo “Tata” Martino Era with La Selección Mexicana kicked off with an impressive 3-1 victory over Chile this past Friday in San Diego. Martino quickly silenced any critics who felt he might have had his hands full with Chile who has recently had El Tri’s number.
What started as a slow first half for Martino’s men, quickly escalated behind goals from Raul Jimenez, Hector Moreno and Hirving “El Chucky” Lozano. Martino accomplished what he hoped for in his first game as manager of the Mexican National Team. His players bought into his system and established an offensive style of play. PSV’s Erick Gutierrez talked to the press after their victory and stated that under Martino the players felt more appreciated as footballers.
Coming into Tuesday night, Martino will host a familiar squad as he gets set to face his former team, Paraguay. Tata, managed to lead Paraguay into the fifth game of the 2010 FIFA World Cup where they almost pulled an upset after a narrow 0-1 loss to the eventual World Champions Spain.
A new era for Paraguay is set to start as previous appointed manager Juan Carlos Osorio, the former skipper for El Tri, stepped down for personal reasons and will now be under the management of Eduardo Berizzo. Martino had nothing but praise for Paraguay’s style of play in his press conference Monday night at Levi’s Stadium.
He stated Paraguay would not defend, and they will not play in the back. He also said that they would pressure on top and hope to repeat the same performance they had in the second half against Peru in the last FIFA Date.
It will be interesting to see which group players Martino comes out as many members of the Mexican media have speculated that the starting XI will be completely revamped. All players were at practice today and Tata will be counting on each and everyone of them for the game tomorrow night.
La Selección de Mexico will look to continue their winning ways under Martino as it prepares for the Gold Cup this summer. For their part, Paraguay wants to get ready for Copa America this summer. Berizzo sees Martino as a good fit for Mexico and stated that they should reach the fifth game of the World Cup should he stay in charge of El Tri through 2022. The fans have high expectations for Tata who has had brief success with Paraguay and Argentina, and they hope he continues his brilliance with the Mexican team who can only imagine great things.
