The US Could Learn from Sven

Reuters Photo

Sven Goran Eriksson’s appoint­ment as man­ager of Mex­ico was crit­i­cized by many includ­ing myself as a des­per­ate move by the FMF which was eager to regain its foot­ing as the super­power in CONCACAF which Mexico’s fans are enti­tled to for their years of loyal sup­port. Mex­ico has not defeated the United States, a fel­low CONCACAF nation on Amer­i­can soil in its last ten tries even though the vast major­ity of these matches have been played in front of large pro Mex­i­can crowds.

The foot­balling nation in Mex­ico had clearly suf­fered a cri­sis of con­fi­dence under its last sev­eral national team man­agers. All of the man­agers either were Mex­i­can or in the case of Ricardo LaVolpe, the lone for­eigner famil­iar with Mex­i­can foot­ball. The hir­ing of Sven Goran Eriks­son whose entire coach­ing career from 2000 on has been spent in Eng­land was a curi­ous choice, espe­cially given the per­for­mance of the Three Lions rel­a­tive to expec­ta­tions in every tournament.

With­out play­ing a match Eriks­son quickly turned the tables on the estab­lished order in Mex­ico. He dropped Jared Bor­getti from the team, and named young­sters Gio Dos San­tos and Car­los Vela starters. The recall of Guille Franco and Cuauhté­moc Blanco to the national team after being frozen out of the setup for years also showed Eriksson’s will­ing­ness to mix the old with the new and essen­tially mix to dis­parate gen­er­a­tions of play­ers who hadn’t been vital to Hugo Sanchez’s plans.

After falling behind to Hon­duras at Azteca last month, the inser­tion of Blanco and Franco in the match turned the tables and Mex­ico won 2–1. This past Sat­ur­day evening, the kids made all the impact as El Tri crushed Jamaica 3–0. The les­son of Sven’s early suc­cess Mex­ico should not be lost on US Soc­cer. Despite hav­ing a per­ceived edge in tal­ent over the United States and play­ers at big­ger clubs than any­one in CONCACAF, the inte­gra­tion of two young star­lets in the setup is impres­sive. By con­trast, ques­tions remain about the com­mit­ment of Bob Bradley to inte­grate Jozy Altio­dre and Freddy Adu, both roughly the same age as the Mex­i­can young­sters in the US setup.

The suc­cess of Sven Goran Eriks­son is ironic com­ing so quickly after the sale of Man­ches­ter City FC by Thaskin Shi­nawa­tra. Sven’s move to Mex­ico seems to have paid ini­tial div­i­dends for a pas­sion­ate but under­achiev­ing foot­balling nation while vin­di­cat­ing Eriksson’s rep­u­ta­tion after mixed reviews for his work with Eng­land and Man­ches­ter City.

TOMORROW: CHAT LIVE WITH FANS ACROSS THE WORLD AS MAJOR LEAGUE TALK LAUNCHES A LIVE CHAT FOR ALL US NATIONAL TEAM QUALIFYING MATCHES.