Mexican National Team: how did Miguel Herrera do when he took the tricolor bench

The Mexican National Team's road to the Qatar 2022 World Cup is about to end. Only a catastrophe would leave Gerardo Martino's Tri without attending the sports fair to be held from November 21 to December 18. However, the technical direction of the team may not be the same for those dates despite having achieved the objective of the qualification.

Given the signs of the poor performance that the national team has shown in its most recent presentations and the increasingly worsening situation regarding the current coach's state of health, it has led to names about possible substitutes appearing in the environment. The one that has gained the most strength is that of Miguel Herrera, current technical director of the UANL Tigres in Liga MX and who has already occupied the bench.

“I think my name has always been on the table, it gives me great pleasure, a lot of pride, it means that I do things well where I show up to work. Honestly, my head is 100 percent in Tigres, I've also said it, I'm never going to say no to the National Team, but today it doesn't happen to me, I have a contract with Tigres and the FMF would have to talk to them, to see how they agree,” said El Piojo in an interview for the ESPN network.

The Mexican coach arrived at the Tri after having led the Aguilas del América, a team he became champion after almost a decade of drought and returned to the top spots in Mexican football. At the end of 2013 he played his second consecutive final with the Coapa team (lost to León) and at the end of the tournament he was appointed as the new technical director of Mexico on an interim basis.

The national context at that time was a complicated qualification process towards Brazil 2014. In that hexagonal final, Mexico could barely place fourth in the table, which earned the ticket to the repechage. It was there that Herrara took command on the bench.

The debut of the Louse could not be better. Faced with the possibility of being left out of the World Cup, the Tri appeared on the court of the Azteca Stadium for the first leg of the reclassification played against New Zealand. The national team, characterized by being largely made up of elements from America, won a clear five-for-one victory over their rival. On the second leg, in Oceania, the score also ended in a rout for the Greens by four scores to two (the overall score was nine to three).

After winning the pass, Herrera was ratified as the national coach. Already at the World Cup, Mexico made a good presentation by scoring seven out of nine points in the group stage, a sector that it shared with hosts Brazil, Croatia and Cameroon. Against Africans and Europeans he won and drew with the South Americans. Finally, in the round of 16 he lost to the Netherlands.

His career with the Mexican National Team continued for another year. The following summer he managed to be Gold Cup champion by beating Jamaica in the final by scoring three points to one. He was dismissed a day later due to the physical assault he committed against commentator Christian Martinoli during a meeting at a US airport on the way back to the country.

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