Mexico’s relationship with the fans is broken
The Rose Bowl stadium has seating capacity of 90,888, but only 62,729 fans attended the game between Mexico against Peru on Saturday night.
The Mexico national team defeated Peru 1-0 with a late goal from Hirving ‘Chucky’ Lozano on Saturday night in their first friendly of the FIFA international break of September. This was an important match because it is the second to last game before El Tri’s manager, Gerardo Martino, confirms the final roster that will be participating in the World Cup in November.
Six minutes before the end of the game against the CONMEBOL side, Mexican fans started leaving the venue when the game was tied 0-0 and they seemed unhappy with the team’s performance. Those who chose to leave early missed the winning goal from Lozano in the 85th minute following a corner kick from captain Andrés Guardado.
Fans are not happy with El Tri’s performances
The reality is that the Mexican fans are not happy with the performances of the Mexico national team in the past two years due to the poor results across all competitions. El Tri lost the CONCACAF Nations League and Gold Cup finals against the United States in 2021 and struggled to secure their spot to Qatar during the World Cup qualifiers earlier this year.
As a result, only 62,729 fans, from Mexico and Peru, attended the Rose Bowl stadium in the start of their send off tour prior to the start of the World Cup on Saturday night in a venue that has a seating capacity of 90,888. Meaning that the people are not confident that El Tri can advance past the group stage and they were left with more doubts than certainty.
“We have to be improving constantly. We did play well for the first thirty minutes [against Peru] but we couldn’t keep that rhythm because in front we had a good team that could’ve easily played in the upcoming World Cup. We should keep improving but the result is positive. With the results we’ve had in the past year, we have struggled to win these type of games,” said Martino during the post-game conference.
After the half hour mark, many fans from Mexico were demanding Gerardo Martino to part ways with the national team, but the reality is that it is too late for the soccer federation to make that decision. The World Cup is less than two months away and Martino will have a difficult task to advance to the knock-out stages because they are in the same group as Poland, Argentina and Saudi Arabia.
The Mexican soccer federation decided to do their send off tour in California and not in their home country because of the broken relationship they have with the fans. In their last World Cup qualifier game against El Salvador earlier this year, around 20,000 fans attended the Azteca stadium and that venue has a seating capacity of 87,523. Next up for El Tri is the Colombian national team and that match will be played on 27 September at Levi’s stadium in San Jose, California.