Mexico announce September and October friendlies including match with Germany

The Mexican Federation has officially announced the four friendlies that the Mexican National Football team will play in the months of September and October, all of them in the United States. Mexico will play against Australia and Uzbekistan in September, then face off against Ghana, and close out with the big match against Germany. All of the matches except for the Ghana match have venues set as Mexico plans to play before returning to official competition in November when they play the CONCACAF Nations League Quarterfinal for the 2023-2024 edition.

Mexico’s 2023 has been the usual constant roller coaster that it always has been. Mexico started under Coach Diego Cocca before a terrible loss against the United States by a 3-0 score and were terribly outplayed, meaning that even a win against Panama in the third place match wasn’t enough to stop Cocca from getting fired. With the Gold Cup coming in, Mexico named Jaime Lozano as interim coach, and under Lozano they ended up having a great performance that finished with Mexico winning the Gold Cup tournament, the first senior NT trophy since 2019. Even with the win, Lozano is still just an interim coach and the National Team remains without an official coach, although Lozano is now a big candidate for the job, especially since the players have constantly praised Lozano’s performance and many expressed they wanted him to keep the job. Mexico will now have to choose a coach before the next friendlies, even if Lozano remains, but so far at least the matches have been set.

While there were some talk about Mexico going to Europe to play the September friendlies, the fact that they could only get AFC opposition (UEFA will have Euro 2024 qualifiers and CONMEBOL has the start of the World Cup qualification) meant that the federation decided to have the matches in the United States. Mexico will play on September 9th in AT&T Stadium in Dallas against Australia. They will then face off against Uzbekistan on September 12th in Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta. On October Mexico will face against Ghana on October 14th although no venue has been set yet. Finally Mexico will close out against Germany, in the most expected match, on October 17th in Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. Unless a non FIFA date friendly is set up, this will be Mexico’s last friendlies as they will have to play the Quarterfinals of the Nations League in November’s FIFA window against a rival yet to be decided. The matches gain importance as the Nations League will be used to settle CONCACAF’s spots for the 2024 Copa America to be held in the United States. Mexico should be well prepared for those matches as they face good opposition even with the handicaps of a reduced pool of rival teams because of all the activity in international football.