Yon de Luisa: “I have to improve if I am to stay at the FMF”
The Mexican Soccer Federation president was self-critical and accepted the blame for all of the national teams’ failures during 2022
Mexico’s failure to get past the group stage at the Qatar World Cup has already begun to take its toll. On Tuesday, Yon de Luisa, president of the Mexican Football Federation and Liga MX president Mikel Arriola announced a series of changes to the domestic league structure. The announcement was followed by a wave of reactions - including a response from De Luisa, who stated that to continue at the helm of Femexfut he must improve various aspects of how the organisation is run.
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In an interview with ESPN, Yon De Luisa explained why he did not resign from his post following the failures of the Mexico’s national teams in various competitions. Mexico was not only eliminated at the group stage of the World Cup, there were also setbacks in the Olympic and Under-20 World Cup qualifiers as well as in the Women’s World Cup qualifiers last year
“I believe that our tenure should be measured as a whole, not by one isolated event. In the sports project, the first part was successful - with the Gold Cup triumph, a bronze medal and both the men’s and women’s teams finishing runners-up in the under-17 championships,” he began. “Within the two strategies, the first is the sports restructuring. We don’t want to go through what we experienced during the past four years with the problems we had with Liga MX clubs, with the players and we also want to promote the men’s and women’s projects in the best possible way. I must also improve in my job if I am to continue”.
Feedback with Tata Martino
The Femexfut president went on to add that both he and Jaime Ordiales and he chatted with Gerardo Martino following Mexico’s disappointing exit from the Qatar World Cup. The three men came to the conclusion that mistakes were made in the line-up selections for crucial matches - especially the second group game against Argentina.
“Within the feedback we gave Jaime Ordiales, we took on the task of understanding what happened and we also talked to the players. One of the conclusions we reached was that for important games like the one against Argentina, we required a different line-up - or the team had to function in a certain way in that specific game - methods that hadn’t been worked on in training prior to the tournament. I did not tell Tata that, because it was after his departure,“ he concluded.