ARLINGTON, Texas — Mexico coach Gerardo “Tata” Martino sees more similarities between El Tri and Paraguay than Mexico and Argentina.
Martino, an Argentina native, guided Paraguay to the quarterfinals of the 2010 World Cup, while he twice finished runner-up in the Copa America in his two-year spell in charge of his home country.
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Martino said the Mexico job has “a lot” of commonalities with Paraguay because of the “possibilities of working in a group.”
“In the Argentine national team, the fact it has big names, including the best footballer in the world, sometimes means the team doesn’t show up as much and at other times we always hope that the individuality is greater than the team’s performance,” Martino said.
“In Mexico… what I’ve seen is that teamwork will give us a chance [of succeeding] and that’s why I rate what I’ve seen in these last three games.”
Martino is expected to make changes from the team that defeated Venezuela 3-1 last Thursday.
“Tomorrow we’ll have the chance to watch players that haven’t had the possibility of playing many minutes,” stated Martino.
Guillermo Ochoa and Andres Guardado are both expected to start in Mexico’s final-tune up ahead of the Gold Cup, with around 50,000 fans expected inside AT&T Stadium near Dallas.
Martino confirmed that Edson Alvarez’s recovery from injury will be monitored and a final decision will be made on his Gold Cup availability right before the tournament begins, while Carlos Salcedo is recovered from injury and will get minutes.
The former Barcelona coach stressed that although some of Mexico’s more experienced players like Javier Hernandez, Hector Herrera and Miguel Layun aren’t with the squad this summer, that doesn’t mean there will be a swift generational change in the Mexican national team.
“I separate myself from the idea that all of them have to go and new players come in, it has to be gradual,” Martino said. “I won’t rule out an 18-year-old youngster, or a 35-year-old.”
Martino was also asked what had surprised him most about his time in charge of Mexico so far.
“What I knew about but hadn’t experienced is the amount of commercial commitments, official and non-official,” said Martino. “It’s one thing to know about them and another to live through them, but we are getting used to it.”