One constant should be Chicharito, who is one goal away from tying Jared Borgetti’s all-time scoring total for Mexico. Though the tournament is in the USA, Mexico has been another home team, with legions of El Tri fans turning out wherever Mexico has played.
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“El Tri” put together a nightmare performance against Chile on Saturday night in the Copa America quarterfinals as they trailed 5-0 before the match was an hour old and ended up losing 7-0. Vargas also has 10 goals in his first 10 Copa matches, a feat that hasn’t been done sice 1959.
Mexico have been playing some of the best soccer in recent memory since hiring Juan Carlos Osorio, their draw against Venezuela broke a streak of 9 consecutive wins.
The reigning champions were rampant as Eduardo Vargas struck four times, with Edson Puch grabbing a brace and Alexis Sanchez also netting.
“The most important thing, and I cannot think of anything else, is the implication this game has for Mexican soccer”, he said in his pre-match press conference.
Chile will now play Colombia in a fascinating semifinal on Wednesday June 22. “Obviously there have been bigger tragedies, but speaking athletically, today was a very poor presentation from us”.
El Tri’s supporters screamed the chant throughout the game, although it has been only a week since the Orlando massacre at the gay nightclub Pulse.
However, unlike soccer’s ruling body Federation Internationale de Football Association, which fined Argentina, Chile, Honduras, México, Peru and Uruguay for homophobic chants by fans earlier this year, the confederations chose to take no action.
“I feel really ashamed to make the fans and all Mexicans go through this”, midfielder Hector Herrera told reporters. Before the game was over, the smattering of Mexican fans who stayed until the end had turned the vulgar chant they use for opposing keepers on their own goalie, Guillermo Ochoa. On the other side, the Chilean federation and press must be pretty happy with Juan Antonio Pizzi and his squad.
But two of those wins came in La Roja’s last two matches, so perhaps things are looking up for the CONMEBOL champs.
You can watch all the goals above, but there were some interesting tidbits I saw in Josie Becker’s recap on MLSSoccer.com that I wanted to share. “They controlled the midfield and won every single ball when we pressed them and defensively we were very fragile”.
It was almost 2-0 in the 37th minute when a ball came from Jean Beausejour across the box to Eduardo Vargas on the right, who slotted home an easy finish.
Sanchez’s 34th goal for Chile tied him with Ivan Zamorano for second on the team’s career scoring list behind Marcelo Salas with 37.
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Fights brought out in the stands by the final 10 minutes as fans acted out.
