By NAYIB MORAN

The Mexican National Team’s Gold Cup included everything. Confrontations between the media and the players, Miguel Herrera calling a journalist a clown after getting asked a really critical question about his team’s performance, and bad referee calls that lifted El Tri as it neared a possible elimination from the Gold Cup.

As El Tri celebrated the obtaining of another Gold Cup, understanding the true feelings of the Mexican players was difficult. They gave the impression of showing immaturity, of not knowing how to carry themselves in good and bad moments. By making the decision to not speak to the media, they turned the Gold Cup into a must-win tournament, no matter if along the way, there were murky decisions that helped El Tri get the wins.

There was a big difference between Mexico’s football in last year’s World Cup and this year’s Gold Cup. Last year, the joy on the pitch was evident, and one of the players that made it known was FC Porto’s Hector Herrera, who enjoyed a breakout tournament in Brazil. This summer perhaps the saddest player on the team was Herrera; it was more common to see him trotting on the field than sprinting into open space.

Miguel “Piojo” Herrera tried chalking up Hector Herrera’s struggles to club burnout, referencing the busy season he had at FC Porto, which was eliminated in the Champions League quarterfinals by Pep Guardiola’s Bayern Munich. Herrera was one of the few players for El Tri who had to play in different places of the pitch during the Gold Cup. At times he appeared on the right wing, other times he lined up in a defensive midfield role, but he didn’t offer great showings at either of the positions.

But even if Herrera made himself into an irrelevant footballer for El Tri during the summer, Andres Guardado and Jonathan dos Santos’ Gold Cup displays carried El Tri through adversity. When Jonathan and Guardado were able to take charge in the midfield, finding the spaces and giving quick one-two passes, El Tri played its best football. Mexico’s most complete game was the final at Lincoln Financial Field. In Mexico’s other five Gold Cup matches, it showed snippets of good soccer. Against Trinidad and Tobago, the Mexicans played a good first half, and against Costa Rica, they excelled in the second half but couldn’t convert on their chances.

El Tri’s football, as was the case during most of the Gold Cup, was governed by Jonathan dos Santos and Andres Guardado. Guardado scored the crucial goals, six to be exact, and dos Santos provided the creative spark.

When the Gold Cup was about to start, Piojo Herrera had in mind to keep that midfield composed of Jose Juan Vazquez, Andres Guardado, and Herrera, but as opposed to last year when he had Rafael Marquez as one of the three center backs, this year his toughest task was finding ways to have a better control of the ball in the middle. Without a player like Marquez who can move so well with the ball at his feet and distribute quick passes, the planning for Herrera got tougher, and it even got exponentially tougher when Hector Moreno was ruled out of the Gold Cup.

Vasquez is characterized as a warrior; he excels at stealing balls in the middle, where the heat of the battle takes place. But with dos Santos in the starting lineup, El Tri was able to retain that quick distribution that was once provided by Marquez. If Miguel Herrera continues depending on a 5-3-2 formation without a center back that possesses confidence going up the field with the ball, then he will need to rethink the formation. In the Gold Cup he attempted it, but the 4-4-2 became too predictable and uninspiring to certain players, as was the case with Hector Herrera.

After the Philly final, Jamaica’s head coach, Winfried Schäfer, commended El Tri’s quick ball movement, but also what should be noted is the fact that dos Santos and Guardado didn’t give a bad pass in dangerous areas, where the Reggae Boyz could have sparked a deadly counterattack, leaving El Tri’s defense exposed.

“Guardado gave a great tournament,” Miguel Herrera said after Sunday’s final. “He has reached his peak at 28-years-old. He had a great season in the Netherlands and reaffirmed it here in the Gold Cup.

“That’s why Guardado is the captain, while Rafa Marquez is out. I’m very happy for what Andres has achieved. It’s impressive how as a midfielder, he was battling for the goal-scoring title.”

The summer was not an easy one for Mexican National Teams, there were more negatives than positives: El Tri was only able to win two games in regular time during the Gold Cup. With that being said, Guardado’s outstanding tournament provided some reason for optimism.  With goals and leadership, Guardado played well enough to leave ‘El Tri’ fans believing their team has a capable captain to lead Mexico into the next World Cup qualifying cycle, a cycle that could well be as bumpy as the last ones.

While there is no argument that Guardado was Mexico’s best player at the Gold Cup, you can find almost as unanimous a sentiment that dos Santos was the second best. As he left Lincoln Financial Field after Sunday’s final, Dos Santos wore a big smile as he boarded the team bus. It took awhile for him to enjoy this sort of moment as a member of ‘El Tri’. Four years ago, he watched his brother Giovani be Mexico’s best player in the 2011 Gold Cup final against the United States, and four years later, it was Jonathan who earned Man of the Match honors in the title-clinching match.

Giovani will be remembered for his jaw-dropping goal in the Rose Bowl against the U.S.,  his performance in the 2005 U-17 World Cup, and for his huge goal against the Netherlands in the 2014 World Cup that almost gave Mexico a spot in the quarterfinals.

His brother is a different player. The youngest of the dos Santos brothers appears to be a better learner, and acts with a lot more maturity. Playing the No. 8 role in El Tri, like in any other team, demands precision and excellence. Jonathan Dos Santos brought a lot of composure to a Mexican national team that badly needed it, and he joins Guardado as the two players most responsible for ‘El Tri’ lifting the Gold Cup trophy for a record seventh time.