Mexico's talent is going abroad, but league is peaking

Mexican national-team sensation and former Atlas phenom Andrés Guardado left in June for Spain's Deportivo La Coruña. Miguel Riopa/AFP/Getty Images

By Martin del Palacio Langer, Special to SI.com, World Soccer

After losing the final of the Gold Cup against the United States in June, Mexico national coach Hugo Sánchez found himself in a difficult situation.

Criticized by the media for failing to fulfill his promise of winning the CONCACAF tournament, he had to play the opening match of the Copa América against Brazil in Venezuela just three days later without Europe-based trio Pavel Pardo, Ricardo Osorio and Carlos Salcido, who "needed a rest." The coach was also missing all-time top goal-scorer Jared Borgetti because of injury.

Sánchez thus decided to take a big gamble and field a mainly young, inexperienced side against the heavily favored Brazilians. Apart from captain Rafael Márquez, Gerardo Torrado and Ramón Morales, no Mexican player on the field in Puerto Ordaz had worn the Tricolor shirt more than 15 times.

Ninety minutes later, an entire country was in shock after Mexico had produced its best performance under the former Real Madrid striker, outplaying the eventual champions on their way to a 2-0 win. Nery Castillo had put the Mexicans ahead with a magnificent goal -- lobbing the ball over Juan's head before slotting delightfully past Doni -- and 22-year-old América goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa had produced a string of superb saves after Morales had put Mexico further ahead with a stunning free kick.

The team finally finished third, beating Uruguay in the playoff after losing to Argentina in the semifinals. Along with Ochoa and Castillo, the Mexican revelations were a trio from league champion Pachuca -- Juan Carlos Cacho, Fausto Pinto and Jaime Correa, who had never played in an international competition before -- and Guadalajara's Jonny Magallón, who was playing in the second division just two years ago.

At the same time, the Mexican Under-20 team, featuring Barcelona's Giovanni dos Santos and Arsenal's Carlos Vela, won four matches in a row at the World Cup in Canada -- the first time any Mexican side had achieved this in a major international finals. Frustratingly, they bowed out 1-0 to Argentina, clearly the country's B side, but only from a Julio Domínguez own goal.

The youngsters' impressive showing prompted the Mexican media to urge Sánchez to give Vela, dos Santos, Cruz Azul midfielder Cesar Villaluz and Guadalajara defender Patricio Araujo a chance on the senior side. And the coach is seriously considering doing so in friendlies later this year.

On June 10, Atlas announced it had accepted a $10 million offer from Deportivo La Coruña for 20-year-old winger Andrés Guardado. The deal smashed the record for a Mexican-to-Europe transfer, set by Márquez, another Atlas academy graduate, when he joined Monaco for $5 million in 1999.

The Guardado transfer continued a trend that started after last year's World Cup. Before the tournament, the Mexican league was an anomaly in the Americas. Its financially powerful clubs, almost all of them backed by huge domestic corporations, were importers of talent rather than exporters.

Year after year, the best South American players who were unable to find a place at a top European club headed instead to Mexico, where they could receive salaries up to 10 times bigger than in their homeland and enjoy a friendly atmosphere away from the pressures of the rest of the continental media and the violence of the hooligan gangs.

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