García Aspe speaks to AS about decision to remove Diego Cocca

During his playing career Alberto García Aspe featured more than 100 times for the Mexican national team and he certainly knows what it takes to represent El Tri.

In an interview with AS Mexico, Aspe praised the decision to remove Diego Cocca from the role of Mexico head coach. Cocca was dismissed after a defeat to the United States in the Nations League final, a performance that Aspe slammed as “shameful”.

Here’s what the Mexican icon had to say about the state of the national team...

Was it a brave and logical decision to remove Cocca and team directo Rodrigo Ares de Parga from their positions?

“I think it was both brave and logical. Logical in the sense that if things are not working, [you have to] create and bring a new process, to look for new things. But they are the only ones who know, the ones who are there, because to make these decisions you have to have all the information.

“The only thing we can be sure about is the approach, which was terrible and shameful on Thursday. They talk about what happened in 1995 in Washington, but this it was an official match and I’ve never seen shame like what we experienced against the United States. It is something dangerous for the future, as it shows that many things are not being done well.”

Do some former players of the national team talk of negative influence, do you see it that way?

“That deserves a more complicated, more complex analysis. You would have to be there on a day-to-day basis. I believe that things have not been done well in the planning process, the generational change should have been greater

“After Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino many players who should no longer be there were kept in the team. We should have been given opportunities to the young players. It’s not going to be easy to find people who weigh in on the pitch. We’ve been saying it for a long time and that has been reflected on the pitch, which is why it’s worrying now.

“I think there are good players, but they have to be guided by experienced people.”

Each era is different, but have we lost some enthusiasm for the team?

“I don’t know, I think everyone still wants to go to the national team. What happens is that nowadays in the national team there is too much pressure because things have not been done well. The World Cup in Qatar it was a terrible failure. In the past we’d been looking to make it to the fifth game, now we don’t even get to the fourth.

“Obviously players might be affected, because the press talks a lot about that. There will always be good and bad, but in the past players did not see as much as now with social networks, mobile phones... It is a tremendous bombardment.”