Mexico Can Finally Focus on Field

By Grahame L. Jones

June 11, 2006 12 AM PT

By Grahame L. Jones Times Staff Writer

HAMBURG, Germany —

Mexico is in for a test of character today.

Coach Ricardo Lavolpe’s squad, buffeted by one crisis after another over the last couple of weeks, plays Iran at Nuremberg in the World Cup opener for both teams. First game or not, it is virtually a must-win match if either wants to advance.

The focus will be on Mexican goalkeeper Oswaldo Sanchez, who flew home to Guadalajara on Thursday after the death of his father the day before. Felipe Sanchez died of an apparent heart attack while preparing to come to the World Cup to watch his son. His funeral was Thursday.

Oswaldo Sanchez was accompanied on his journey by former Mexico and Galaxy goalkeeper Jorge Campos, now an assistant coach for the Tricolores.

They rejoined the Mexican team Saturday after traveling back to Germany on a charter flight arranged by Chivas de Guadalajara owner Jorge Vergara and arrived in time for Sanchez to train with the team.

Afterward, Sanchez said he was emotionally and physically fine. “I feel good,” he said. “I’m happy, because we are going to win tomorrow. Everyone in Guadalajara gave me a lot of support.”

Would he play?

“If Lavolpe allows it, I am ready,” he said.

Under the circumstances, Sanchez could easily be left on the bench today, but Lavolpe said he was leaving the decision until the last minute, waiting to determine Sanchez’s physical and mental state.

His decision is complicated by the fact that while Sanchez, 32, has played more than 70 games for Mexico over the last decade, 25-year-old backup goalkeeper Jesus Corona’s international experience is limited to six games, and third-stringer Guillermo Ochoa, 20, has played only once for El Tri.

Putting an inexperienced player in a key position against Iran, which has several top-quality players, including Ali Daei, Mehdi Mahdavikia and Ali Karimi, is a risky proposition at any time, but especially in a World Cup.

“I don’t want to predict what is going to happen,” Corona said after training Friday at the team’s base in Gottingen. “We know that Oswaldo is a strong man ... but if he cannot play Sunday I am ready.”

This World Cup was to have been Sanchez’s great opportunity. He was on the bench behind Campos in 1998 and behind Oscar Perez in 2002 but is now Mexico’s unquestioned No. 1.

He played in 12 World Cup qualifiers and conceded only five goals.

He is also one of four on-field leaders for Mexico, the others being FC Barcelona defender Rafael Marquez, Club America midfielder Pavel Pardo and Bolton Wanderers forward Jared Borgetti.

Together, the four have kept Mexico’s squad on a more or less even keel despite the flap over the exclusion from the team of forward Cuauhtemoc Blanco, the tune-up losses to France and the Netherlands when the team arrived in Europe, forward Francisco “Kikin” Fonseca’s bust-up with Lavolpe over playing time and the ongoing argument over the inclusion of naturalized players on Mexico’s roster.

The latter two points surfaced in spectacular fashion last week when Vergara, the Chivas owner, part-owner of Chivas USA and no fan of Lavolpe, told an Argentine radio station that the Argentine-born Lavolpe was “drunk, insecure and paranoid” and should be ousted.

Lavolpe, who owns a soap-manufacturing plant in Toluca, very likely will be sent packing if Mexico fails to get out of its group, which also includes Angola, a virtual unknown, and favored Portugal.

That makes today’s game key.

Mexico’s lineup is a guessing game, even without Sanchez in the equation. Lavolpe was expected to start Borgetti and Argentine-born Guillermo Franco up front, but what role in-form Omar Bravo would play is uncertain. Then, too, there is Fonseca to consider.

“We have good, capable players,” Fonseca said, trying to mend fences. “Ricardo can move the parts in different ways.”

Mexico needs goals, and all four are capable of delivering, but Lavolpe has to get the combination correct or face another round of criticism.

Iran, meanwhile, has problems of its own, on and off the field.

Mahdavikia and Karimi are coming off injuries and might not be 100% fit and Ferydoon Zandi has been sidelined by flu.

Then there is the political cloud hovering over the Iranian team.

Some European politicians wanted Iran banned from the World Cup because of the anti-Semitic remarks of its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has questioned whether the Holocaust really happened and has called for the elimination of Israel.

Mohammad Aliabadi, the Iranian vice president, is expected to attend today’s match, and President Ahmadinejad has said he will go to Germany if Iran advances to the second round.

Protests have been threatened if Ahmadinejad does come and Theo Zwanziger, president of the German soccer federation, has been blunt about his feelings on the matter.

“If he does come ... then he will naturally be told in all clarity that what he said is absolutely unacceptable, criminal and far removed from reality,” Zwanziger said on German radio.

The Iranian team, meanwhile, has done what it can to push politics to the side. On Saturday, Coach Branko Ivankovic refused to answer questions regarding Ahmadinejad’s controversial views. Players have done the same.

“I am not a politician and never liked politics,” Daei told Agence France-Presse. “I am an athlete and I say what I want to say in the football matches.

“In football, a lot can happen, but our No. 1 goal is to make it to the second round.”

Mexico’s is the same, and it could be Sanchez who makes the difference.

At a glance

RESULTS

* England 1, Paraguay 0

* Trinidad and Tobago 0, Sweden 0

* Argentina 2, Ivory Coast 1

STAR OF THE DAY

* Shaka Hislop, Trinidad and Tobago: Stopped all six of Sweden’s shots on goal to carry his team to a 0-0 tie in its first World Cup match.

TODAY

* Netherlands vs.

Serbia and Montenegro