Gerardo Arteaga to miss out on friendlies and Olympic Tournament

The Mexican National team has announced that Gerardo Arteaga ends his participation with the National team and will miss the next round of friendlies as well as the upcoming Olympic Games. Citing personal reasons, it was announced the defender was the second official departure from the team after Jose Juan Macias was also out of the tournament because of an injury. It was announced that Tijuana defender Vladimir Loroña will take his place in the national team.

Gerardo Arteaga had been one of the standouts of the U24 Olympic team in his club career. The defender came through the Santos Laguna youth system and made the move to Europe where he plays in Belgian side Genk. With his absence, Diego Lainez is set to be the only player in the Olympic tournament to play in Europe. Edson Alvarez also plays in Ajax, but will have to skip the tournament as he wasn’t given permission from his club. European clubs can now deny permission to the Olympics, when in past tournaments they were official call ups for underage players but not for overage players.

Mexico will be playing against Panama on Wednesday 30th in Nashville. Reports are that it will mostly be played with the U24 team that will play on the Olympics. Mexico will have another friendly against Nigeria in the LA Coliseum on Saturday, July 3rd in preparation for the Gold Cup.