apnews.com/article/copa-america-mexico-ecuador-f2be379991b7b31a2a823721effab165
Mexico eliminated from Copa America as Ecuador earns spot in quarterfinals after 0-0 draw
Good. Hopefully this elimination is good enough for the Federation boss to fire the incompetent crony head coach Mexico has. Under his leadership, Mexico has been in a steep decline, and on straight path for a new record of a 2nd straight elimination from the 2026 World Cup group stage - because this Mexican team is the worst Mexican national team in the last 5 or so years, it’s really bad.
It’s a team that prioritizes calling players based on marketing deals rather than on how talented they are. This has always been the case tbh, but under this coach, the ridiculous calling and starting XI is just amplified with shitty players like Uriel Antuna always being featured despite being a plain bad player, while leaving more talented and worthy and younger players out of tournaments.
With the amount of corruption in the federation, nothing is gonna change sadly
Nah the issues with Mexico’s team are a country wide thing. Nepotism, corruption, and frankly the players lack the motivation to be good. The problem is the league pays players too much, and they get complacent. I see no hunger in any Mexican player to be the best, they’re satisfied with being pro Mexican soccer players none of them have the drive and hunger to the best in the world. Couple that with the nepotism and corruption in the Federation and you get the shit show that is our Mexican National Team. Honestly I haven’t been excited the watch them play in years, the players are complacent and the league knows they can get away with bullshit because the money keeps coming in so why change.
I have heard this about Mexico. I wonder if this is part of the reasons countries like Canada are on the rise.
Sure there is the CPL and MLS, but a lot of Canadians are focused on playing in Europe and end up there at some point in their career.
sadly i don't know enough about Mexico and its culture to make any kind of an informed opinion
what i can say about Canada though is that in the last 30-35 years, there has been a major cultural transformation when it comes to sport in that country. Of course hockey and other winter activities are always going to be king...but basketball and soccer are no longer afterthoughts up there. that's really the product of both of those sports just spending a lot of time and energy investing in popularizing it with the youth
1000%.
My kids are in soccer and I can tell you in the last 10 years the infrastructure around that in Canada has grown immensely.
Probably lots of reasons for this. Stars they can look up to. CPL/MLS. World Cup. So much interest.
Also though, the quality of the infrastructure is growing. Most major cities have some decent indoor facilities that allow players to play year round. The coaching has also gotten better. Many expats with much more experience are coaching. Even voluntarily as parents.
Finally, it's become a bit of a business. Just like hockey, there are all kinds of camps, private coaches, sessions, and tournaments, etc..... like it or lump it, it appears to result in some better players.
Oh and one last thing... We're starting to see Canadians kids use it as a launching ground to get into US universities on scholarships. I think a few of the current batch of Canadian national team members went that path.
your last paragraph reminds me of a similar situation with basketball. Top line Canadian players are going to Duke and Kentucky. While the elite tier end up just going to the NBA after a season or two, there's plenty of others who don't make it that far but are still walking away with a degree
It’s not the HC, it’s the entire Federation that’s rotted to the core.
In the last 5 or so years???? I would say I have not seen a shittier Mexican team in my life, and I'm 40
The head coach is just a figure head, he hasn't even been in charge that long. The whole federation needs to go
But twitter told me it’s the Pocho’s fault for funneling dollars into this joke of a team 🤷🏻♂️
They are part of the problem too
Mexican Twitter thinks it’s the whole problem. They seem to forgive the FMF and televisa
Twitter is a cess pool
Man I hope the Copa and Gold cup merge. The tournament is so much better combined than separate.
At least, it shows MX isn’t at the South American level.
Mexico has been a frequent guest at Copa America over the years though and done pretty well. Just not this time.
5 times finishing 2nd or 3rd out of 11 appearances
Because cups are relative and I like to see data on my own, I recreated a table for all the games Mexico participated in Copa America since 1993 to analyze this: “Mexico does pretty well. Just not this time.” I focused on those ten tournaments to normalize the data as much as possible and kept Mexico as the comparison anchor.
The first noticeable thing is that Copa America had four performance tiers during this period.
- These are the leaders who are clearly dominant during this period. It shouldn’t be surprising that we are talking about Brazil and Argentina. These teams have been the most dominant in the period, with Brazil winning four titles and Argentina winning two while reaching the finals multiple times.
- Then, the layer underneath of consistently well-performing teams during this period was Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, and Paraguay. Uruguay and Chile teams have multiple titles in this period, with Uruguay winning twice and Chile winning consecutively in 2015 and 2016. Colombia achieved one championship, and Paraguay was once the Runner-up (similar to Mexico).
- The next layer is the teams that, despite good showings here and there, usually leave the tournament at the group stage: Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. Peru here performs much better than the rest, but not enough to be part of the other group. Bolivia is by far the team that performs the least well.
Mexico’s participation is almost a perfect bell curve:
Champions: 0 Runners-up: 2 3rd Place: 3 4th Place: 0 Quarterfinals: 3 Group Stage: 2
Compared with the other teams, it follows somewhere between the last two groups. Its combined performance in these tournaments is not as good as Uruguay and Chile’s, but it probably falls somewhere between Colombia and Paraguay (Colombia won the tournament once).
Colombia Champions: 1 Runners-up: 0 3rd Place: 3 4th Place: 1 Quarterfinals: 4 Group Stage: 1
Paraguay Champions: 0 Runners-up: 1 3rd Place: 0 4th Place: 1 Quarterfinals: 5 Group Stage: 3
So, if we included Mexico within the Conmebol during this period, it would rank 6/11 (right in the middle)
Brazil Argentina Uruguay Chile Colombia MEXICO Paraguay Peru Ecuador Bolivia Venezuela
So, it performed ok (meh), not “well,” and certainly not “pretty well.”
I think your analysis still suggests that Mexico has performed at the “South American level”. By your own ranking Mexico performed worse than 5 CONMEBOL teams and better than 5.
When Mexicans say they perform at the South American level, I assume they imply competing with the best South American teams. If not, you are correct, they perform like a mid-tier South American squad (not the cream of the crop).
Granted, the next level of analysis would be to see goals scored in favor and against. If there is anything like this cup, they may bring MX even further down or raise it; who knows?
PS: I don't have the time for that analysis.
honestly, a Copa America without Mexico feels incomplete lol
i think they either were left out or declined to participate in some of the more recent Copas and it always felt weirdly empty
They weren't invited
I'm sure CONMEBOL missed the streaming rights revenue from Mexico and the US of having MX in the mix. One thing I noticed while analyzing the data yesterday is that the tournament data is more organized when there are twelve teams. With only the CONMEBOL 10, having 3 groups of 4 teams makes it harder to standardize the data.
I don't think it does at all. This article is literally about them drawing with a South American team.
No one has ever thought that the LIGA Mx was better than any South American top league.
A lot of Mexican broadcasters Would differ …
Exactly, if you dial into Univision, TV Azteca, Televisa, etc., they’d make you think they are a soccer powerhouse. It would be great if they were, but it is derisory.
Edit: Here is a sample: TikTok Link
Exactly and the fact still remains that concacaf is a weak conference but since Mexican fans do fill stadiums it is to important to let it fail with FiFA sponsored tournaments .. copa America this year is a different animal and if you looked at US TV ads( English tv) you would think that Argentina is the only team playing .. might as well just give Argentina the trophy
Yeah of course , would you expect them to talk shit about their own league lmao that doesn’t change anything
You should hear Globo when Brazil loses a game or exits a tournament at the group stage.
The comment here is that Mexican commentators make hyperbole the actual Mexican national sport unrivaled anywhere else in the world.
They used to be up there in the 2000s, with multiple final and semi final Libertadores appearances. They haven't competed in there for 8 years now though. And there's no doubt their level has plummeted since.
I was talking about LigaMX clubs' performance in Libertadores, not the national team in Copa America.
Ok, I looked at the data.
This isn’t the most in-depth analysis, as the only dataset I could get for the years Mexico participated (1998-2016) only included winners and runner-ups (and I wasn’t going to create the data from scratch). It limits the depth but highlights the most successful teams.
Country-Level Analysis 1. Dominance of Brazil and Argentina: They consistently outperformed others, with Brazil capturing 9 wins and 9 runner-up titles, and Argentina securing 7 wins and 3 runner-up spots. This pattern underscores their strength, paralleling their performance at the national team level. 2. At the club level, Colombia, Ecuador, and Paraguay were consistently competitive, each achieving notable success. Colombia has 2 wins (2004, 2016) and 1 runner-up (1999). Paraguay has secured 1 win (2002) and been runners-up 2 times (2013, 2014), equal to Ecuador has 1 win (2008) and 2 runner-up finishes (1998, 2016). 3. Always bridesmaids, never brides: Mexico: 2 times (2001, 2010) and Uruguay: 1 time (2011). 4. Countries With No Finals Appearances: Bolivia, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela did not have teams that won or were runner-ups during this period.
So, looking at the club level, Mexico again ranks in the middle (exact same position — 6/11) during this period. However, many of the countries changed positions (notably Paraguay, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Chile).
So, the ranking of the clubs at the country level would look like this:
Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, MEXICO, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, and Venezuela.
At the club level: 1. Boca Juniors is the most dominant team in the Libertadores during this period, with four wins (2000, 2001, 2003, 2007) and 2 runner-ups (2012, 2004). 2. Several Brazilian teams, such as Internacional, Palmeiras, São Paulo, and Santos, frequently appear in the finals. 3. Boca, Palmeiras, São Paulo, and Olimpia were both winners and runners-up, indicating their consistent high performance over this period.
I'll take it as a complement that someone would go to such lengths to prove me wrong. In my comment I said "in the 2000s" meaning the decade from 2000-2010. In those years the Libertadores had the following top 4 results
Winners 2nd Semi
Brazil 4 7 7
Argentina 4 2 4
Mexico 0 2 5
Colombia 1 0 3
Paraguay 1 0 1
Ecuador 1 0 0
Uruguay 0 0 1
Chile 0 0 1
I think it is fair to say, that while they don't compete with Brazil and Argentina, they were along with Colombia in the third/fourth best position. I don't think saying they were "up there" contradicts this. In your analysis you also missed 2015 when UANL reached the finals.
You remind me of a comment a Goldman Sachs exec once made: “You can always define your market as narrowly as needed to ensure your company is #1.”
I used ALL the times Mexico participated in both tournaments and, for Copa America, excluded teams that didn't join in all the tournaments Mexico did, like the USA and Costa Rica, to make it accurate.
But sure, you can be #3 in that narrowed period, or better yet, we should say that Mexico was #2 twice in the periods from 2001-2001 and 2010-2010.
🌙💭🇲🇽✨
i think this is definitely a fair assessment.
my first memory of the Mexican team was the 1998 World Cup. That was really a moment for them when they started catching attention outside of Mexico's borders because they held their own against an elite team in the Dutch, and one of the World CUp mainstays (albeit one on a dramatic decline) in Belgium
they built up a ton of momentum heading into 2002 and started off the tournament with some incredible performances...but it genuinely feels like they have never recovered since the U.S. beat them in the Round of 16 in the World Cup lol
Mexico has been as good as any South American country but Argentina and Brazil. Not recently, but they're at a low point right now.
Not true. I looked into it in a different comment in this thread (link).
Edit: I think there are only three ways of making that statement true.
- Add Uruguay to the list on top of Mexico, as it has two World Cup wins. So, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and “Mexico.”
- You include the results of the short-lived Confederations Cup (because Mexico won it once).
- You count all the Gold Cups won (11), despite CONCACAF being a weak association and Mexico not having real contenders until recently).
If you accept those three statements, technically Mexico has a better record than the other CONMEBOL countries.
If not, then Mexico is just above Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela.
Lay off the pozole amigo … only in your head that’s true
Almost all rankings have them like right behind Brasils top league and ahead of all the others.
I’d ask for sources.
Rankings, although powerful, have many shortcomings. Here are two examples: - France was ranked #1 pre-tournament in FIFA but exited at the 2010 World Cup group stage. - Greece shockingly won the Euro 2004 despite being ranked 31st then.
Edit: I just checked FIFA’s, and they are #15 after dropping from #12. Nowhere near close to #1 Argentina and #4 Brazil (who just went up one place while MX dropped three).
Teams ahead of MX from the CONMEBOL: Arg, Bra, Col, Urg.
Teams ahead of MX from the CONCACAF: USA. And that's before Canada and Panama bypass them in the ranking because they are actually advancing. Who knows, Costa Rica may even rank higher after the Copa since they scored more goals.
No mames guey, MX isn't even at the top in its confederation.
Edit: Added the comment on the CONCACAF teams that will bypass Mexico in the rankings and changed league to confederation in the last comment.
Liga MX is admittedly fun to watch. i just started to get into it this past year
but yeah...it's not on a similar level with a lot of the other leagues. I feel like this has been an ongoing issue with Mexico for years. They think they are closer to the more traditional "elite" teams because they dominated CONCACAF for decades. Now that's obviously no longer the case and they are in the Denial stage of grief
The smaller federations in CONCACAF won't go for it since there aren't as many spots for them.
Whatever problems they might have the answer to them is money
They’re just like me fr
Aaaah yes, the Jerry Jones paradigm of sports management, where some how you end up with the most valuable sports team on the planet with decades of consistent mediocre performance.
Gold cups haven't been relevant for years and counties usually send their C-B teams for it
I'm new to this : why are North American and Central American teams playing in the Copa America this year?
They’ve been inviting teams from other confederations for like 30 years now. First they expanded it to 12 teams in the 90s, and now it’s at 16 teams. Since there’s only 10 CONMEBOL teams, they invite a few teams from other confederations. Usually the better CONCACAF teams, but Japan has also played in it.
The South American confederation CONMEBOL only has 10 nations. They started inviting guests to their continental tournament in 1993 in part to improve the format and expand the audience.
At that point it's almost a world cup.
There should be match between Mexico and Italy to decide which team has had the biggest decline
Considering Italy has won something in the past 20 years and isn’t perpetually losing to the American team, I think Mexico are on the bigger decline and have been for some time now.
Yeah. A World Cup and a EURO. That's decent. They went to two more EURO finals as well, if I'm not mistaken
Inter reached the Champions League final last year with a core of Italian players, Atalanta won the Europa League and Fiorientina reached the Confederation League final this year. Italy have some very good players but also alot of medicore ones, especially in the attack. (Chiesa was their talisman in the last Euroes but he tore his ACL a bit after that and he havent really been the same since).
But doesn't that actually make Italys decline bigger?
No. Because there isn’t a real decline… they literally won the last Euros and just happened to go out early this year. As others have said they’ll be just fine.
Wouldn’t that mean Italy is on a bigger decline since they’ve been much much higher
The match should also decide who gets to keep the flag 🇲🇽:🇮🇹
Germany has been at a low point as well
Mexico has qualified for every World Cup, but not the US. Why not compare that tragedy of a team?
Mexico has qualified on the basis of being in a weak conference not to mention that being a very big cash cow for concacaf they always get the benefits of questionable calls .. using that as pedigree to say that the mighty Mexican team has always qualified to the World Cup is ludicrous without putting that into context of who they are competing against… but don’t worry they won’t need to qualify for the upcoming one as a host country
Mexico has not qualified for every World Cup.
Neither has the US
No one claimed they have.
No one needs to.
Right. Not sure what you're trying to say, I don't speak 6 year old.
…..got third place once though.
Canada has entered the room.
Don’t worry USMNT may follow the MNT out of the tourney too
What about the TMNT?
Copabunga, dude!
Believe it or not, straight to Coco Bongo
As a frequent enjoyer of soccer, I use to watch often but haven’t been as much the past year or so the copa/euro on is awesome right now. To your point, this is def a do or die for usmnt and feel like a die because they’re horribly inconsistent. Some games they play like they’re there to conquer the world, the next its they forgot how to kick bol
In Mexico we say: "we played like never before, but we lost just like we always do"
I’d laugh bit the USMNT will be eliminated after tonight and I’ll feel the same pain
USMNT has been improving tho. They're probably hyping themselves too much, but they're gonna be fine going into 2026. They messed up this tournament against Panama, a game they should've won. It sucks, but there's something to look forward to.
Mexico has issues that go beyond talent and coaching. There is no reason why, in a world with fewer a-holes, Mexico shouldn't be ranking top 10 every year as an elite defensive team.
It feels like they haven't hit rock bottom yet. 😬
Problem with US is the talent is fantastic, consistency is bottom of the barrel. Get that up and play every game like they mean it and it’ll be much better.
I agree, they can tie against Brazil one day (scrape by, but still) and lose 5-1 to Colombia another.
Mexico on the other hand... Ugh. They have talent, they've produced some elite youth teams and then they disappear. I've seen a few people talk about this being one of their biggest issues, developing talent from 18-23. Instead of sending those players overseas to face better competition and get more playing time... They get paid a ton to stay in Liga MX for garbage time and meh competition.
I don't know how true this is, but it seems like there is a lot of wasted talent.
Officiating has been atrocious during this years copa.
Jeez, Mexico taking advantage of the fact their spot in the World Cup is secure just because they are co-hosts
For Ecuador this wasn’t football, this was war.
Mexico will make it up to their fans by crushing teams like Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica during the Copa de Oro.
Well this will soften the incoming bummer.
I love how US and mexican fans are both blaming the coach when in reality its a systemic issue for both federations 😂
Sorry about my American ignorance, why does a draw let Ecuador advance? Did they beat Mexico earlier?
Ecuador advanced based on better goal differential.
It's the "group stage", where all of the teams are divided into "groups" of four. Those four teams all play each other, and earn three points for a win and one point for a draw.
The two teams out of the group of four who have the highest total points at the end advance to the "knockout round", which is basically a 16-team single-elimination championship.
how do you lose a 0-0 draw?
I want to root for Mexico, but then the opposing keeper kicks the ball, and… 🤷🏻♂️
Philly fans say waaay worse stuff than Mexico fans lol
Moderator removed comment
2d
My Mexican friend said
“If you think we are sore losers now, wait until you see us become sore winners”
No sport should ever result in a draw. Which is the reason why soccer is not very popular in USA.
It’s literally possible for an NFL game to end in a tie.
Not even that rare either. There's been 12 ties in the last decade.
Genuinely don't understand why American sports culture is so alergic to draws / ties.
It's a tournament, there is going to be a single winner at the end. Who cares if there are draws along the way?
Baseball was the most popular sport in the US for most of it's existence, and has never had ties other than for really weird things like a rain out during a tie game that ends up not mattering at the end of the season so they don't bother finishing it. Basketball has also been very popular here for a long time, and the NBA has never had tie games. The NFL added overtime in 1974 which also almost completely removed ties from the game. So basically the three most popular sports don't have ties, or only have them extremely rarely, so we just aren't used to them being part of our sports. Of course the flip side is that you can't tell soccer players to just stay out there until someone scores, because someone else might have a damn heart attack first.
The NFL still has ties
That's what I said...
Sorry was tired and misread what you said about the NFL.
Can’t play forever in soccer bro. Plus it’s just the group stage.
Knock out is different , there has to be a winner
If you cannot outscore the other team in 90 minutes, you deserve a tie.
No you should play until someone wins. A tie is for little girls playing sports.
Doubt thats the sole reason but I agree I like to see one winner
And the pathetic flopping to draw yellow cards.
That I can go without
Soccer is one of the most popular sports in the US lmao what backward southern hick town are you from?
Come on.
A 0-0 tie sounds like a blast... as though they could have not played at all, and had the same non-result.
Eh, as a baseball, hockey, and football fan, watching good defenses is a lot of fun. Watching two teams with awful offense is not so fun though. So low scoring games can either be super exciting, or completely boring.
Better that way tbh USA is ruining football with their corpo look at everything, why have cops America in na? So dumb u don’t even like the sport smh
Wow! Mexico always considered a powerhouse in Latin American soccer.
Mexico considers themselves a powerhouse
Well said …
Not necessarily. They've always been a powerhouse of North American football but were far behind the top South American teams.
Now they're no longer the best North American team and struggle against even the average south American teams.
A powerhouse against weak competition
Not by a long shot. Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia are the A tier.
I’d argue they’re B tier or C tier at best.
I think Argentina and Brazil are in a class of their own. Mexico is below Uruguay and Colombia, either at the bottom of that tier or toward the top of the next.
I wouldn’t put Brazil above Uruguay and Colombia these days.
Keeping in mind that Uruguay is a country that has under 3.5 million people, it’s honestly incredible the amount of fantastic players they have
For sure lol. I guess I was thinking more so in terms of historical + recent success. Brazil obviously rates higher for one of those.
I would say that 10-15 years ago, they were the 3rd best Latin American National team after Brazil & Argentina, but within that decade, the Mexicans leadership has done such a bad job, that they went from playing Copa America Finals to barely being able to beat Canada - a hokey country. Mexico has hit so low that they’re probably only better than Bolivia, the worst team in South America, putting them in 10th place. They still dominate Central America, barely, but they still win, but it’s a whole different story in South America.
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