Mexico U-21 falls badly in friendly against Germany

Mexico fell 3-0 in Germany in a friendly between their U-21 teams. Germany was playing the game to train for an U-21 Euro Qualifier against Ireland, while Mexico is preparing itself for the eventual Olympic qualifiers. While Mexico played well for the first 20 minutes, they fell apart after the first German goal and were completely dominated in the second half. This adds to this particular team’s woes, as it’s the same category from the team that failed badly at the Central American and Caribbean Games. Mexico will stay in Germany for a friendly against Karlsruher on Monday.

For this game, coach Marco Antonio “Chima” Ruiz missed the match to be part of the coaching staff in the Uruguay game, so second in command Mario Arteaga took charge of the team. The game started very even, with Mexico and Germany almost taking equal command of the ball. Mexico kept pressuring Germany all over the field and it paid off in terms of not giving them many opportunities and possession of the ball.

That said, while Germany created a chance that goalkeeper Jose Hernandez saved, Mexico failed to create any chances through forwards Eduardo Aguirre and Ronaldo Cisneros. Then Germany opened the scoring off a corner kick. Two Mexican players failed to clear the ball, as it went past them and into the path of Janni Serra, who pounced on the ball for the 1-0. The defensive mistake really hampered Mexico, who although they tried to continue with their play, weren’t able to be as successful as they were prior to the goal.

Germany started to dominate and Mexican players started to flounder physically. The half ended with Germany in control of the game.

The second half started with a completely different tune to the first. If Germany had been in control of the game in the first half, it turned into complete domination once the second half started. Another terrible defensive mistake off a corner left the ball for Aaron Seydel to put it past the goalkeeper for the 2-0.

Instead of coming back, Mexico looked done and Germany started to pile on the pressure. A cross on a breakaway ended with two German players beating the offside trap before combining to score the 3-0 by Pascal Stenzel.

With the game essentially done and dusted, Mexico finally started to create some danger but it wasn’t until the 63 minute (and after a German player had missed an incredible opportunity to score) that they forced the German keeper to make a good save. The game continued with the same script and Germany twice hit the woodwork before the game ended. Mexico were lucky to only lose by three goals.

Mexico will remain in Germany until their game on Monday. The loss isn’t surprising and Mexico still has a long time to pick things up. But after the Central American Games failure, it’s not a good sign. Had the result been the same but with Mexico looking good at times, it would have been a different story. The score was well deserved and even fell short for the German team.

Mexico will need to pick things up now. Mistakes by the coaching staff, combined with the fact that the team had such a collapse after halftime, is not a good sign ahead of the tough qualification process for the Olympic games.