Mexico’s goalkeepers vie to start in World Cup
Reporting from Houston -- When Felix Fernandez was named to Mexico’s World Cup team in 1994, he knew exactly what his role would be: cheerleader.
“We all knew that Jorge Campos was a top star, the best goalkeeper,” says Fernandez, who never got on the field in that tournament. “It’s completely different than right now.”
That’s because right now Mexico has three “best” goalkeepers. And Coach Javier Aguirre has hinted he might not name a starter until just days before El Tri meets South Africa in the World Cup opener next month.
“Nobody at this time is a starter,” Aguirre said. “Nobody has a role secured.”
Thursday in Reliant Stadium it was Memo Ochoa’s turn to impress his coach in goal. But he had a mostly uneventful night in Mexico’s unsatisfying 1-0 win over Angola in front of a sellout crowd of 70,099.
The only goal came off the right foot of Andres Guardado early in the second half, while for Ochoa the shutout, in which he made only two saves, did no more than match Oscar “El Conejo” Perez’s performance in Mexico’s last game, a 1-0 win over Senegal. And Luis Ernesto Michel’s effort in the game before that, a scoreless tie with Ecuador.
In fact, Mexico’s goalkeeper trio has given up only one goal in seven games this year, and that came when Ochoa was fooled on a shot that took a strange hop in the second half of a 2-1 win over North Korea in March.
Fernandez says the weak competition had something to do with that. Of Mexico’s first seven opponents, only Ecuador is ranked among the top 65 teams in the world according to FIFA. But the keepers have also played well, he adds.
“These three goalkeepers, they have different skills,” he said. “And it’s very important that the goalkeepers have great coordination with the defense and with the rest of the team. Every team plays different with one goalkeeper or another.”
Ochoa, at 24 the youngest of the three, seemed the likely starter at the beginning of the year. But Michel, who made his international debut less than four months ago, has arguably outplayed him this spring. The 37-year-old Perez, a past favorite of Aguirre’s, was a surprise selection to the national team. And given his 49 international caps and two World Cups, he was expected to serve primarily as a tutor to his younger teammates.
For the time being, however, Aguirre is saying he has a chance to start.
“I’m happy,” Aguirre said Thursday referring to the play of all three keepers. “We’ll see. We have five games left before the World Cup. And we have to keep testing them to find the goalkeeper I think, as the coach, is the ideal one to support the team.
“There’s a lot of pressure. Millions of eyes are watching the Mexican team.”
Speaking of the rest of the team, Mexico was energetic but once again inconsistent against Angola. Playing for the third time in seven days, El Tri remained haunted by an inability to finish off its scoring chances — especially in a first half that included one goal negated by an offside call, an Alberto Medina shot that bounced off the goalpost and another chance that ended when Adolfo Bautista whiffed on an unmarked shot from 10 yards.
Guardado finally found the back of the net in the 53rd minute, banging home the rebound of his own missed shot from just outside the six-yard box.
