El Vasco Aguirre is back but this march to the World Cup will be different than he has experienced before. With Mexico being a host, there wont be any World Cup Qualifiers and it will be tough to find high quality opponents who wont be busy with their own qualifiers.
Initial Thoughts
No big red flags for me when looking at his roster and it’s not like Jimmy Lozano was ignoring some great Mexican player throughout his tenure. The player pool is what it is. It won’t change drastically for the near future. Jimmy’s failure was his inability to get the best out of his available players and his lack of tactical flexibility.
Still, I would like for Aguirre to take some risks with his selections.
Snubs?
The first omission that jumps out at me is Hirving Lozano. He just turned 29 and leads the Eredivisie in goals. It’s the first call up for Vasco so I will give him leeway as he gets a grasp on our player pool but Lozano should still be in that pool. At least until there are clearly better options… and if we keep calling up Uriel Antuna ….. well, that does not bode well for everyone.
I would have chosen younger options for certain players who did get called up. I have no idea why Guillermo Martinez was getting minutes at Copa America and I’m still not sure why he is on this roster. He is 4 months older than Chucky and 7 years older than Santiago Gimenez. I’m not sure what timeline he fits in with. I would rather call up an attacker on the U23 squad instead of having him take up a roster spot.
Also, why is Carlos Rodriguez in the roster? Over his last 50 appearances for the senior team, he has 1 goal contribution. It was an assist against Jamaica during World Cup Qualifiers back in January 2022. He does not produce for the national team, otherwise he would have more than 1 assist to show for it over his last 2,700 minutes played for Mexico. I would much rather have a Jordan Carrillo or Marcel Ruiz or Heriberto Jurado in camp.
Overall
Its hard to analyze this roster too much until we see how Vasco wants his squad to play ie his formation and tactics. I hope LigaMX clubs work with the national team and allow for some of those small mid-week camps for Vasco to get a good look at the talent at his disposal. The bar is so low for Mexico over the last 12 months that I find it hard to believe the play wont improve but I have been saying that for the last 6 months and it only got worse.