Mexico’s Leadership Quandary

On the surface, there appeared to be no relationship between Saturday night’s soccer match at the Rose Bowl and next month’s Olympic Games.

There was, however, that remark about donkeys, and those few words tied the two events together.

Addressing the media during the Copa America, which ends today in Peru, Mexico national team Coach Ricardo Lavolpe was less than flattering toward the press.

“Some reporters have bad intentions and others are really donkeys,” he said. “Seventy percent of the journalists are horrible.”

What prompted the outburst was the Mexican media’s running battle with Lavolpe, with some segments championing former national team and Real Madrid star Hugo Sanchez, who desperately wants Lavolpe’s job.

At the moment, Sanchez coaches the Pumas of UNAM, a team he led to the Mexican league title last season. On Saturday night, the Pumas were in Pasadena, where Sanchez was cheered onto the field with chants of “Hugo, Hugo,” which he acknowledged with an imperious wave.

Despite Sanchez’s furious pacing and arm-waving on the sideline, however, the Pumas could manage no better than a 0-0 tie with Argentine champion River Plate in front of an estimated 12,000 fans.

That was better than the trouncing they suffered last Sunday in San Diego, where River Plate won, 4-1.

Still, the games -- part of a series being played by UNAM to mark the club’s 50th anniversary -- did keep Sanchez in the spotlight, which he basks beneath.

If Sanchez is to inherit Lavolpe’s position, it will not be until after the Athens Games. The 52-year-old Argentine, a reserve goalkeeper on his country’s 1978 World Cup-winning team, won’t hand his rival the job on a platter.

“If we win a medal, the people are going to start to understand,” Lavolpe told the Mexican sports daily newspaper Esto.

“If we don’t achieve something positive in the Olympic Games, I will have to step aside because it’s not a question of Lavolpe but of Mexican soccer.”

Mexico plays Greece, Mali and South Korea in the first round and is favored to advance.

Since taking charge of Mexico in January 2003 after the team’s failure at the 2002 World Cup, where it was ousted by the United States in the second round, Lavolpe has had mixed success.

In competitive tournaments, though, he has done well, winning the CONCACAF Gold Cup with the national team in 2003, qualifying the under-23 team for the Olympics and reaching the quarterfinals of the Copa America.

All the same, Sanchez has criticized him relentlessly and on a personal level.

“He doesn’t talk about soccer,” Lavolpe said. “He doesn’t know [the sport tactically], while I have a firm philosophy and foundations.”

The feud between the two has grown nasty, with Lavolpe referring to those “who lack ethics, like Hugo Sanchez” conducting “a campaign of lies” against him, and Sanchez responding by saying that “if you are not a good person, you are good for nothing.”

Lavolpe’s future now hinges on the Olympics.

Sanchez, meanwhile, is awaiting a phone call that might never come.