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Dos Santos, Guardado, Barrera, Marquez highlight Mexico roster for U.S. friendly

Mexico (ISIphotos)

Photo by ISIphotos.com

Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez won't be participating in the United States' friendly with Mexico next week, but his trio of offensive teammates that did most of the damage in Mexico's Gold Cup final victory most certainly will.

Giovani Dos Santos, Andres Guardado and Pablo Barrera will all represent El Tri in Philadelphia next week, along with New York Red Bulls centerback Rafa Marquez and four of the five players who were suspended from the Gold Cup for testing positive for banned substance clenbuterol.

Chicharito is missing the match because of a concussion he suffered in training prior to the MLS All-Star Game.

Here is Mexico's roster for the friendly:

MEXICO ROSTER FOR U.S. FRIENDLY

GOALKEEPERS – Guillermo Ochoa (AC Ajaccio), Alfredo Talavera (Toluca).

DEFENDERS – Efrain Juarez (Real Zaragoza), Francisco Rodriguez (VfB Stuttgart), Hector Moreno (Espanyol), Carlos Salcido (Fulham), Rafa Marquez (New York Red Bulls), Jorge Torres Nilo (Tigres), Paul Aguilar (America).

MIDFIELDERS – Gerardo Torrado (Cruz Azul), Israel Castro (Cruz Azul), Jesus Zavala (Monterrey), Sinha (Toluca), Andres Guardado (Deportivo de La Coruna), Christian Bermudez (Atlante), Javier Aquino (Cruz Azul).

FORWARDS – Giovani Dos Santos (Tottenham), Pablo Barrera (West Ham), Oribe Peralta (Santos Laguna), Omar Arellano (Chivas de Guadalajara).

What do you think of the roster? How do you see the friendly unfolding?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. There is one thing you forget. Mexico’s soccer infrastructure was exceptionally poor until the late 80’s. There was little money in Mexican soccer for player development until the 80’s when the television giants started pumping money in the league and with the parallel rapid development of the country, particularly in the industrial capitals like Monterrey and Guadalajara. Prior to this, the talent that came out of Mexico was predominantly sporadic and not as a result of a national strategy or industry focused on player development. However, now there is a focus on getting in some European coaches to develop club’s youth systems (like Westerhoff leading Chivas’ youth system), “professionalizing” the youth development system, creating more youth competitions, and looking to successful models in Europe and South America.
    Mexico may have a longer soccer history, but that doesn’t mean that it has approached it in a way that Argentina or Brazil has. Mexican teams were generally fairly poor performers in WCs and then in the 90’s, just like the US, they started doing a lot better internationally.
    Mexico is currently reaping the riches of a much more professional approach to their football industry than the US, whereas the US’s system is not set-up to compete with established powers that “breed” players from the age of 7-9. Teams like Chivas, Atlas, Cruz Azul and Pumas are developing players from those ages and it’s starting to pay off, instead of waiting for a few naturally gifted players to lift the team singlehandedly. But this is a recent development spanning almost a generation. It’s the different approach that is paying off now, and I think it’s incorrect to use the longer participation in world soccer as an indicator of a country’s performance. It has to do much more with infrastructure, culture, opportunities for development and creating the outlets for players to benefit from their abilities.
    And this change in approach is even more apparent when you witness the change that has occurred in player’s mentality. I view the recent Gold Cup final as a clear example of this. Before, Mexican players played as if they were entitled to being on the field and treated their CONCACAF rivals as inferior, since the former system still allowed them to field stronger teams than the US and others. This new generation is the product of a much more professional approach and they work hard on the field to produce results, reflecting a completely different soccer culture. 8-5 in the last 10 years? Mark my words Hush, with the new type of player that Mexico is developing, I wouldn’t be surprised if that turns to 1-12 in the next 10 years if the US doesn’t make some much needed changes to their soccer system.

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  2. Hey Mista, just curious what does ‘tuco salamanca’ mean? I played a couple of games in Salamanca as a youngster….terrible place…good beer though.

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  3. I think if you boys focused more on your team than on hating Mexico you might be happier fans in general. The two are just very different beasts. That’s all.

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  4. most of the guys they would want to bring back are not willing to leave europe and playing at the highest level – unless they got beckham type money perhaps. but they know they can come back when a bit older anyway, so why not enjoy EU while possible

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  5. Dale, I would agree with you that the US youth development system is flawed and that Mexico has talented players, but it is ridiculous to say that not winning a single U17 world cup shows that the youth development system is bad. Spain, Germany, Argentina, Italy, Portugal, Uruguay and many other strong teams also never won the U17 world cup, but have better youth development systems than Mexico. Has Mexico ever produced a player of similar quality as Messi or Maradona? Or Eusebio and Christiano Ronaldo? Did Mexico ever advance deep in the real world cup? I am glad that Mexico has a good team – the US needs strong competition in the concacaf to get ready to play against strong teams from Europe and South America in the World Cup. Mexico needs the US to be strong for the same reason.

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  6. Arsenal refused to release him for Copa América since it was not a Concacaf competition. Femexfut did say Arsenal was within their rights to do so.

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  7. Mexico will not win the WC. They will not be playing Bornstein and teams coached by Bradley in the WC. They will win against the US with Lichaj, Holden, Dempsey and Bedoya sitting it out. Not to mention the very avarage players Ream, Torres, Castillo, and below average Orozco and Clark.

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  8. If your youth systems are so good then how come the USA hasn’t won a single U-17 World Cup title? Dint the U-20 miss out on the WC because they lost to Guatemala? How come every time a MLS team loses to a European team the excuse is always lack of depth? if the youth systems where any good that would not be the case……Money doesn’t make talent, look at Chivas Developmental systems, its based on talent and skill, not money. Guadalajara has the best youth system in all CONCACAF hands down, they have plenty of talent thats going to pose a great threat to the US side in the future…

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  9. So you’re gonna throw in the US semi-final appearance from 1930 when the World Cup was just 13 teams to show that the US is better than Mexico? Makes sense. Also our economy is crumbling so I’m not so sure we’ll even have that to our advantage in the future.

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  10. except Marquez has 10+ European Championships under his belt, including 2 Champions league titles….Marquez is still better than any defender in the U.S. squad

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  11. It is the best developmental system in Mexico without a doubt, over 15+ players have ventured to Europe from Chivas. They’re goal is to develop talent to feed the Mexican national team and they have done so since their existence, thats why they only field Mexican players…Chivas developmental system is the best in CONCACAF, it would be considered the among the top 10 best in this side of the hemisphere among the likes of River Plate, Fluminense, Santos, Sao Paulo ect.

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  12. Mexico has won a Confederations Cup before. 1999. Also, Mexico has been Copa America runner-ups twice and took third place three times. Not world power status but worth mentioning.

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  13. Let’s get off the Mexican nuts, people! Mexico is an average team like the U.S team. The Mexican team goes through these moments every once in a while. Come qualifying time Mexico falls dramatically. This has always been Mexico’s story. Pure fact. Mexico has 85+ years of playing Futbol and still just an average team. Where as we been playing serious Futbol since 1992 and have been in a quarter final & semi final (shet & giggles) in a World Cup… 80+ years vs 15 years, give or take, I would say we have done a decent job.

    Mark my words gente, the U.S will win a World Cup before Mexico,Ecuador,Colombia, Paraguay, Chile… We are the fastest growing Futbol nation in the world. Our $$$$ & youth systems are above everyone as we speak. I believe most Euro coaches rather coach a U.S team than most of the teams on this side of the world because of what we represent as a sports nation. The U.S is the Holy sight of Sports in general… Like or not we attract more interest.

    2011 has been a bad year for the entire U.S system, but it is still moving forward slowly but surely. If in 80 years we are still standing here with the same results like the Mexican team, then we can shoot ourselfs to sleep. USA 8-5 in the last 10 years against Mexico. We good!

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  14. Klinsi called Mexico an international “Top 10” side. I don’t think he’s exaggerating. And they are clearly better than us right now, with or without Chicorito. If we fix the back line, then we close the gap. If.

    And stocking their team from the Mexican league … well, from what I’ve seen, it’s very high quality. Certainly better than MLS.

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  15. We are playing this game to pay our new coach (and also the old coach).

    Mexico is bringing their A team because beating the USA is the most important thing in the world to them.

    Win or lose, I will always hate Mexico.

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  16. I don’t understand why we’re playing this game. Let’s assume that, by chance, we win 30 to 0. We’re still not Concacaf Champions, we’re still not going to the Confederations Cup, we still got whooped when it mattered most.

    I am all for playing competitive matches, but you don’t play your arch-rival when you’re down and undergoing a rebuilding period. You play them when you got your game face on and you feel you can win.

    To reiterate an earlier post: ‘we’re fu%&*@’

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