Offering 2-for-1 tickets and free entry to anyone who kept the physical ticket of the last time Mexico played at the Estadio Cuauhtémoc in 2007, the Mexican national team prepares to host La Liga's Valencia in a friendly game Saturday night.
The Mexican Soccer Federation is doing everything it can to avoid seeing the bleachers in Puebla, Mexico, resemble the scene of El Tri's last two games in Los Angeles and Dallas. Two places where El Tri usually feels at home were abandoned by its fans, painting a brutally honest picture of the sporting crisis the Mexican national team has been immersed in since the start of the decade.
Mexico was once the undisputed king of CONCACAF, with traveling fans that packed the biggest stadiums in North America and the world. Now, this deeply soccer-loving country has fallen out of love with a national team that's continuously failed to deliver them anything other than defeats and embarrassing eliminations in the biggest international competitions.
The domination of the region is a thing of the past, Mexico are winless against the USMNT in its last seven meetings. In the 2022 World Cup, El Tri failed to make it past the group stage for the first time in 44 years. Last summer's Copa América was a chance to return some credibility to the national team; however, Mexico scored one goal in three games and once again were eliminated in the group stage of a major international tournament.
It feels like forever ago when Hirving Lozano fired a shot past Manuel Neuer to score the winning goal against reigning champion Germany in the opening match of the 2018 World Cup. What's happened since are a frustratingly high number of poor decisions that have left El Tri in shambles, lethargically wandering toward a World Cup it will co-host in less than two years.
The reasons are many and start at the top. Liga MX owners abolished relegation and promotion in the league in 2020, meaning players and teams no longer feel pressure to perform every single week to avoid finishing last in the standings. Owners along with the Soccer Federation also decided to stop competing in the continental Copa Libertadores in 2016, passing on the chance to continue to play against the biggest teams in South America. The decision to also stop sending the national team to play in the Copa América from 2016 until its return to the competition this year caused even more confusion.
