With its new coach Diego Cocca and a cast similar to the one that was at the last World Cup, Mexico will begin its long journey towards the 2026 World Cup when it faces Suriname in the group stage of the CONCACAF Nations League.
“Pressure in football is part of the job, you put yourself under pressure if you think about the bad, I prefer to think about the good,” Cocca said at a news conference on Wednesday. “We started a process with the World Cup included, we have three and a half years to work.”
Argentine Cocca replaced his compatriot Gerardo Martino, who led El Tri to its worst World Cup performance since Argentina 1978 by missing out in the group stage.
Cocca surprisingly won the race for the position over other coaches such as Miguel Herrera and Uruguayan Guillermo Almada.
As the host country along with the United States and Canada, the Mexicans will not have to face a tie and matches like Thursday’s against Suriname in Paramaribo and Sunday’s against Jamaica at the Azteca stadium will be Cocca’s test tubes.
To start his stage, Cocca named 34 players — 20 of whom were with Martino at the World Cup in Qatar.
“The idea is to find the best players and it doesn’t limit me if they are young or veteran but if they are Mexican and give their best effort,” said Cocca, who will use several young players on Thursday.
Several World Cup veterans didn’t even make the trip to South America and will be the ones to face Jamaica on Sunday.
“Here there is no B or A team, here is the Mexican team,” said the strategist, who won a two-time championship with Atlas. “For performance there must be internal competition and we need each player to be at their highest level.”
One of the players who will have a chance in absences is striker Santiago Giménez, from Feyenoord, who traveled directly from the Netherlands to Suriname.
“For me it is a source of pride and I thank God for allowing me to be here,” said Giménez, who was left in the last cut of players before Qatar. “I don’t know what my role will be, it depends on the teacher, it’s a long process, but wherever I have to be, I’ll try to add.”
Giménez arrived at noon on Wednesday and will barely hold his first training session with Cocca, who was appointed to the position in February and has not been able to have the full team to work with.
In a video from Fox Sports it was possible to see, during the flight from Mexico City to Suriname, when Cocca stood in one of the aisles of the plane to give a technical talk to several selected ones.
“There is no time to work, so we take advantage of every moment and every space, time is money,” added the coach. “We have planned these matches a lot due to the complication of the trip, there are players I haven’t even been able to greet, but there are no excuses, we will do our best”.
