Mexico snubbed from Copa America once again.
For the first time since 1991, the world’s oldest international tournament will be played without the Mexican National Team. In their first attempt at the South American championship in 1993, Mexico placed second losing 2-1 to powerhouse Argentina in Ecuador. That is the highest placed seed for a country that is not a part of the CONMEBOL and managed to do it again eight years later losing to the host country Colombia. It is now being reported that besides El Tri not participating-let me rephrase that-not even being offered a bid in the 2019 tournament they will also be snubbed from the relaunched 2020 tournament in Argentina-Columbia.
Many have argued that part of the reason Mexico did not attend this years tournament would be so they can focus solely on the Gold Cup this summer since both tournaments were set to play simultaneously. The Mexican Federation has sent two teams to each to competition; their first team to the CONCACAF tournament and a second string team to the CONMEBOL, but the last two instances, in 2011 and 2015, El Tri did not advance to the second round. This year the two countries that accepted the invitation were Qatar and Japan, following Qatar making their second appearance in 2020 and China replacing Japan in next years tournament. “The presence of both teams is due to the high interest of the Asian Football Confederation in participating in CONMEBOL competitions and the commitment of the South American Football Confederation to contribute to the development of football worldwide,” – CONMEBOL via Yahoo Sports. The CONMEBOL president Alejandro Dominguez has made it clear he has a very close relationship with the Asian Football Confederation and plans to grow that relationship in the upcoming years leading into the Qatar 2022 World Cup.
The truth is, in recent years the relationship with the Mexican Federation and the South American Confederation has declined. The Mexican federation has removed its clubs from the Libertadores due to scheduling conflicts in the restructure of the tournament. It seems as if the Mexican federation has its eyes set on expanding with the MLS and growing their brand of football. There have been hopes and aspirations for CONCACAF and CONMEBOL to combine their tournaments, similar to Copa America Centenario in 2016 which was hosted by the United States. The tournament consisted of all 10 South American teams plus six CONCACAF teams, but any talks of combining both tournament’s in the near future have been dismissed.
Some are citing that Qatar’s involvement in these future tournaments is the fact that they need better competition as they prepare to host the World Cup in 2022, others say that CONMEBOL has found a new trust fund for the upcoming years. Whatever the reason may be the one thing we do know is this, Mexico will have to wait till 2024 to see if they are extended a bid to Copa America when it returns to the place where it all started for them; Ecuador. For the meantime, they will have to settle and continue to battle in the region they’ve mostly dominated throughout the years.
