Who Will Fix Struggling Mexico National Team Before 2026 World Cup?

El Tri will blame the retiring head coach for the Mexico shortcomings in Qatar, but the issues are much more serious.

The Tata Martino era is now over. On Wednesday, it came to a conclusion at Lusail Stadium after midnight. As predicted, it came to a conclusion with Martino being booed by a Mexican fan base that had long since turned against him. Soon later, he made his exit known.

That fandom will continue to argue endlessly about what to do next. Whether it’s Miguel Herrera, Guillermo Almada, Antonio Mohamed, or one of the myriad other individuals that will be mentioned in connection with the position, they’ll talk about Martino’s prospective replacement.

But the reality is that Mexico’s national squad requires improvement. Nobody—not even Martino—could succeed on their own.

Mexico’s attempt to play “El Quinto Partido,” the fifth game, failed miserably on Wednesday. El Tri hadn’t done enough to catch up to Poland, who held onto second place in Group C as it came down to the wire, despite defeating Saudi Arabia 2-1.

It wasn’t on that hot night in Qatar, though, that Mexico failed. Even in the two previous games, where El Tri missed opportunities to score more points, it didn’t appear.

No, Mexico has a long history of failures. This was not an isolated incident; rather, it was the most recent sign of a persistent issue.

Martino undoubtedly contributed to that issue. The ex-Barcelona manager’s support base had clearly turned against him despite the hype surrounding his hire. They had reason to in many respects, too.

The national team’s program is not among the elite, despite how strongly El Tri supporters feel it should be. Of course, El Tri supporters are frequently too harsh on their team. However, there were valid grounds for criticism of Martino, whose team selections on the way to Qatar infuriated many and whose strategies never appeared to succeed in crucial games.

Although few supporters of Mexico will, ignore the fact that Carlos Vela and Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez were left at home. But when you consider that Diego Lainez and Santiago Gimenez, two players who might have played for the national team in the future, were absent, you can see why Martino might become irritated.

Martino’s native Argentina suffered a defeat as well. He received criticism for his strategies, which included severely parking the bus when playing Lionel Messi, a player he had previously coached for both club and country. However, his demeanor received the most criticism, as many supporters felt Martino wasn’t nearly as devastated as they were.

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Martino, though, was only one of the issues. All of it is more complex than that.

The current Mexican team is not good enough and, more significantly, is too old. While the young national teams of the United States and Canada qualified for the World Cup, Mexico arrived in Qatar with up to eight players over the age of 30 who were anticipated to play significant roles. All three strikers—Raul Jimenez, Rogelio Funes Mori, and Henry Martin—come under this category, and none of them did particularly well in Qatar.

“At least when I played we passed this phase,” said Mexican legend Cuauhtemoc Blanco, who called for Marcelo Bielsa to be named as Martino’s replacement. “I think they lacked a little more courage and desire in the last play, but that’s football.”

Everything points to a bigger issue: Mexican soccer doesn’t let its best players develop to the same level as a Chicharito or Vela.

There aren’t many players who are going to Europe. Chicharito, Vela, Andres Guardado, Miguel Layun, Hector Moreno, and Hector Herrera were once prominent players in top leagues, but those days are long gone. Only Guardado, Jimenez, Hirving Lozano, Edson Alvarez, and Erick Gutierrez remain from the World Cup call-ups now playing at the highest level in Europe, and only two of those players are over the age of 30.

The Mexico World Cup team had five players who were under the age of 24. They played for a total of 17 minutes as a trio.

The fact that Mexican players have grown to be far too valuable to Liga MX teams means that Mexico isn’t exporting talent as much as it once did. Due to the lack of significant transfer fees, Liga MX is forced to keep the solid-to-good players instead of selling the elite players, such as Jimenez and Lozano, for their market values.

El Tri has been hampered by this in various ways. Never before have there been so many Liga MX players in the starting XI, but they have always been a strong foundation of the team. Additionally, there are now more players for the national team who are above 30 than ever before.

Yon de Luisa, the president of the federation, and Mikel Arriola, the head of Liga MX, will eventually be responsible for finding a solution to that issue.

And the federation’s recent failures are not limited to the World Cup in Qatar. The women also missed out on qualifying for the World Cup while the men missed out on qualifying for the Paris Olympics. For good measure, you may also include the men’s teams’ disappointments in the Nations League and the Gold Cup.

Both executives have greatly increased the federation’s and national team’s revenue and reach, but much work remains to be done to change the national team program’s course.

That begins with a coach, and while Martino was undoubtedly a problem, those two will still have to make a lot of important choices in the future.

Not only are they lagging behind their regional opponents, but also the rest of the world, is Mexico’s national team. El Tri’s performance in Qatar, where they failed to advance past the group stage for the first time in eight tournaments, demonstrated how far they had fallen.

The goal is to right the ship on home soil by 2026, which is sooner than most people anticipate. Only three and a half years remain until that World Cup, forcing El Tri to quickly rebuild its national team program before what should be – and still may be – a watershed event in the history of the nation.

The year 2026 will arrive before you realize it because time is running out. When El Tri finally arrives, what will it look like?