Mexico going to the 2024 Copa America after beating Honduras in penalties
The Mexican National Team faced Honduras this Tuesday night, after having lost 2-0 in the first leg of the series in Tegucigalpa last week. After this result, Mexico secured a direct spot in next year’s Copa America, and advanced to the Final Four of the Concacaf Nations League, where they will face Panama in the coming march.
The game itself was everything the first leg wasn’t. The first leg saw an Hondurean team having Mexico at its mercy and playing some brilliant football at times, especially to score their goals. In turn, the Mexican team had one of their worst performances since ‘Jimmy’ Lozano became full-time coach of El Tri. For the game at the Azteca however, the Catrachos came resolved to keep the score difference, thus renouncing to the attack and waited for the counter, knowing full well that a goal by them forced Mexico to score 4 times, due to the away-goals rule.
Despite these facilities given to the Mexican team, they seemed unable to translate goal possession and control of the game into clear chances in the last quarter of the field. It was in fact Honduras who had the clearest chances, twice at the 31’. First Anthony ‘Choco’ Lozano escaped from the right and served to Luis Palma, but the striker, who plays in Scotland’s Celtic, couldn’t make contact with the ball, moments later Luis Malagon flew to save another attempt by the Houndureans. Talking about Malagon, the Club America keeper showed that he can be up to the challenge of guarding Mexico’s goal, perhaps being the best player for Mexico in the game.
Mexico pushed forward and Jesus Gallardo almost netted the first goal with a long distance shot that went slightly off target, after a corner kick taken by ‘Chucky’ Lozano. At the 43’ however, Mexico was finally successful in their attempts after a free kick goal by Luis Chavez, who once again showed off his prodigious touch of the ball.
With the hopes high, Mexico faced the second half with renewed spirits and lots of impetus to try to get the series-tying second goal. They pushed forth but once again couldn’t net their numerous attempts. It was indeed Honduras who had the clearest chance of the game when at the 60’, ‘Choco’ Lozano took a header, a few meters away from the goal, that Malagon saved impressively with mere fractions of a second to react.
The game kept on with Mexico completely going on the attack and with Honduras trying to capitalize the spaces left behind. Towards the end of the game, the Central Americans began to waste excessive amounts of time, understandably trying to lose time and break off Mexico’s vigour. The referee in turn added nine minutes to the regular time, but due to a constant stoppage of the game by the Hondurenas, he decided to add an extra two minutes.
Mexico desperately tried to get the goal that tied the series, but saw in frustration how their attempts were not completed. At the 100’ minute however, one minute before the final whistle, ‘Machin’ Alvarez impacted a ball that Santiago Gimenez had put down for him and put the ball in the net. An incredible outcome and a fair reward to Mexico’s numerous attempts.
In the added time, the game didn’t bring many emotions other than a red car on Denil Maldonado after he stamped his foot on ‘Chino’ Huerta’s leg when the Pumas attacker was coming in at high speed through the middle and into the box. A horrible aggression that could have translated into a severe injury for the Mexican player, but which fortunately ended up not being too serious. Mexico kept pushing but were unsuccessful in their continuous attempts.
With that, Honduras forced the penalties and this is where Malagon shone again. First, ‘Chaquito’ Gimenez started with the right foot the penalty series and with an impressive strike scored his shot. Then Malagon stopped Bryan Rochez’s attempt and Mexico began easing out a bit of the pressure, as every other player scored their given penalty. Said pressure came climbing once again when ‘Chino’ Huerta missed his attempt, but the referee repeated the penalty after keeper Edrick Menjivar was said to jump forth to aid his blocking attempt. Huerta took the penalty once again, with a slight stop-and-go faint that he also attempted in the first shot, and once again missed. Menjivar also repeated his jumping motion and the referee repeated the penalty for a third time. This time around, Huerta –again with the same previously inefficient feint– finally scored and relieved the tens of thousands of people in the stadium.
After this, Malagon stopped Andy Najar’s attempt and with this, handed Mexico a very suffered victory against an always complicated Honduras. The Central Americans believe that they were blatantly robbed, however, the referee added a reasonable amount of time, given all the attempts by the Hondurenas to stop the effective play-time, and also correctly repeated the penalty twice. Perhaps he could’ve repeated the first penalty that Malagon stopped, but that would be the biggest valid reproach against the referee. It’s also worth mentioning that despite giving two warning cards to the Hondurean keeper, he correctly didn’t send the player off because cards given in penalty series are not added to previous cards given during the rest of the game.
Mexico overly suffered because of the very bad game in the first leg, but were able to reverse the tide at home. Now they will prepare the most important tournament, the 2024 Copa America, and the most important games they will have, from here until the World Cup in 2026, due to them not having to play qualifying games.
