Ricardo La Volpe: “Mexico has the players that the world is looking for”
The former manager of the Mexican national team emphasized the quality of the players ahead of the start of the 2022 World Cup.
Ricardo La Volpe had a successful stint as manager of the Mexico national team between 2002 and 2006. El Tri was able to qualify ahead of time to the 2006 FIFA World Cup and finished in first place in the qualifying standings under his tenure. La Volpe also won the 2003 CONCACAF Gold Cup and finished in fourth place at the 2005 Confederations Cup, with a victory over the eventual champions Brazil in the group stage.
Under La Volpe, the Mexico national team defeated Argentina after many years during the 2004 Copa América and he was named the ‘Best Coach of the 2006 World Cup’ by The Guardian for his attitude. Since parting ways with El Tri, there have been 14 managers in the past 15 years, but none of them with the success reached by Ricardo La Volpe.
La Volpe’s view on Gerardo Martino
After Mexico lost 3-2 to Colombia in the last fixture of the international window, Martino said that the lack of minutes of the players in Europe’s top tier has affected the negative results in the past two years of this tenure. But the former Mexico boss doesn’t agree with Martino and he believes that his generation is better than the past ones.
“Mexico has the players that the world is looking for. Tecatito Corona and Hirving Lozano Are players that have the ability to create chances. Martino will wait until the last minute for Corona because he believes he can recover from his injury. If not Martino has Uriel Antuna and Alexis Vega as his replacement,” said La Volpe during an interview with ESPN.
“Martino also gave Luis Chávez from Pachuca an opportunity with the national team and he is a great player. Andrés Guardado’s age doesn’t help him and Hector Herrera made a bad decision going to the United States. Martino needs two box-to-box midfielders that are able to generate plays,” added the former Mexico boss.
La Volpe also mentioned that Gerardo Martino is having a hard time adapting his system because he can’t hold mini camps during the week. A major reason for that is that the majority of the players are in Europe’s top tier and when La Volpe was in charge they were playing in Liga MX.
“Martino doesn’t have time to work other formations. I held mini camps on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday they will return to their clubs. Now-a-days that is impossible,” added Ricardo La Volpe.