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Martino acknowledged that the Argentine’s fall “played in his players’ heads” and that now the key match is Saturday

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Mexico’s technical director, Argentinian Gerardo Martino, analyzed his team’s debut, a goalless draw with Poland, but he didn’t do so without taking into account that one of the greatest successes in history had taken place hours earlier of the World Cup. . Argentina’s 1-2 loss to Saudi Arabia moved them up the Group C shelf.

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“It was an unexpected result for everyone, but it happened. Having Saudi Arabia first in the group is what started playing in everyone’s head. We haven’t changed our formation, but clearly It is not the same to see Arabia above Argentina“, he acknowledged.

“(The Defeat of Argentina) It didn’t change the schedule, but it played into the heads of the players. We knew that winning was essential, but that Argentina had lost and that, the way Poland played, they could have hurt us.”

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Tata believed that results like this Tuesday in Lusail “can only come in the first round of the World Cup” and previously ruled out that it could change the way of tackling the match for the second round in the area.

“Now the scenario changes. If before we spoke of the first match as the most important, now it will be the second“, admitted the Argentine coach, who on Saturday will have to face the team led by Lionel Scaloni and who he led after the World Cup in Brazil, who had Alejandro Sabella on the bench.

Speaking of that clash, Martino assured that the draw with Poland “doesn’t change” what they had planned to do against Argentina. “They will not see a Mexico neither more crouched nor braver, but smarter. We cannot definitively change what we say one day and deny it the next. We have to play a type of game and that does not change today’s result, “he explained.

Also, I don’t think Argentina will change the way they planned to play them. If something happens later in the match that puts pressure on one or the other, that’s normal in football. We have to play the game we have to play against Argentina – he underlined -. There will now be two finals for each of the group members.”

Likewise, the DT professionally assimilated the possibility of eliminating the team from his country: “They are the things of our profession. We work for Mexico and think about your well-being. We will try to do our best in that match.”

The draw, however, lowered the price of Argentina’s defeat, who will now have to face Mexico and then Poland, who have just one point more than the Albiceleste. The matches will be played on Saturday and Wednesday next week.

“We had to beat Poland”

Martino acknowledged that, after Argentina’s defeat, it was “very difficult” to play against Poland. “I think we looked for it well, we never lost order. I liked the position of the team during the first half and we deserved to start with some sort of advantage because we had clear finishes,” she analysed.

“We had high points during the match. In the second half the game was more even and Memo’s save came; I think we deserved to win,” he added.

Precisely, on Ochoa’s penalty Lewandowski contained, he specified: “It was very positive because it was basically the only finish Poland had in the game.“.

Martino is not the only Argentine in Mexico, given that Rogelio Funes Mori, the former River player nationalized to integrate the national team, is also present in Qatar, and he did not go unnoticed: the Aztec fans booed when their names were announced in the lineups at the Estadio 974 as the game was played.

Public enemy “number 1”

The “Tata” monopolized the most insistent disapproval, even if it shouldn’t have surprised him given that before arriving in Qatar the coach had admitted that he felt “public enemy number one”.

In this sense, one of the greatest glories of the country, Hugo Sánchez, has asked for his dismissal. And he wasn’t the only one: Luis Hernández -El Pájaro, Mexico’s top scorer at the World Cup-, said telam that DT “is not reliable” and Miguel “Piojo” Herrera, former DT in Brazil 2014, criticized that “nothing works for him”.

The 59-year-old ‘Tata’ took charge of the Mexican side in early 2019, lifted the Concacaf Gold Cup trophy six months later and has since had his image chipped due to a build-up of sporting frustrations.

Football problems started after the pandemic when the team lost two finals to the United States, their biggest rival in the region, and suffered more than necessary to secure World Cup qualification.

Criticisms of the manager were compounded by his decision not to count striker Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernández, who barely took part in the first friendlies of the process.

Following this decision, Funes Mori, who occupies a top position in the list of 26 players in the World Cup, also suffered from fans’ refusal to list the surnames on the substitutes’ bench.

Funes Mori, 31, a Monterrey footballer, scored 6 goals in 16 appearances for Mexico, all in the ‘Tata’ Martino era.

GL

Source: Clarin

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