Mexican soccer stagnant due to lack of opportunities — Tuca Ferretti

Cruz Azul supervisor Ricardo “Tuca” Ferretti mentioned Mexico’s soccer standing is declining as a result of of a lack of invites to South American competitions and restricted opportunities for home expertise in Liga MX.

“I believe that it is stagnant and declining more, little by little,” the 69-year-old Brazilian coach said Tuesday in episode of Futbol Picante. “In the competitions we had before, it raised our level a lot. When we began to go to the Copa America, Copa Libertadores, it rose.”

Despite Mexico’s affiliation with CONCACAF, the Latin American nation beforehand had common invites to CONMEBOL tournaments.

From 1993 to 2016, the Mexico males’s staff took half within the Copa America, ending as finalists in 1993 and 2001. From 1998 to 2016, Liga MX golf equipment participated within the Copa Libertadores and earned three runner-up spots in 2001, 2010 and 2015.

Although CONCACAF and CONMEBOL announced a partnership in February that’s highlighted by a U.S.-based Copa America and “final four” membership competitors in 2024, the partnership would not have the identical attain and depth that Mexico as soon as had with South American soccer within the Nineties and early 2000s.

“It’s complicated, because it’s a confederation that’s not ours,” Ferretti mentioned throughout Futbol Picante.

Over the previous few years, Mexico males’s soccer appears to have slowed its tempo throughout all ranges concerned in membership and nation.

For the nationwide staff, setbacks embrace Mexico’s group stage exit within the 2022 World Cup, two losses to the United States within the finals of the 2021 Gold Cup and the inaugural CONCACAF Nations League, in addition to a failure to qualify for the 2024 Olympics and the 2023 U20 World Cup.

At the membership stage in 2022, Liga MX was unable to win the CONCACAF Champions League for the primary time within the competitors’s fashionable period, whereas additionally shedding the MLS-Liga MX Campeones Cup.

Ferretti famous that half of Mexican soccer’s decline is not only a lower in participation in main tournaments with CONMEBOL, but additionally restricted probabilities for home expertise in Liga MX.

“We are filling up more and more with foreign players. It’s being trimmed [in roster rules], but it’s still not enough,” the Cruz Azul supervisor mentioned.

Despite noting that adjustments cannot be drastic due to funding already made in signings from overseas, Ferretti said that “hopefully it reaches the ideal number of five” overseas gamers per Liga MX staff.

In January, Liga MX president Mikel Arriola proposed a quantity of adjustments throughout the league, together with a lower within the quantity of overseas gamers per squad from eight to seven.

Ferretti, employed in late February by Cruz Azul, started his new tenure with a 1-0 victory at house over FC Juarez final Saturday.

Now main his seventh Liga MX membership, the Brazilian made a reputation for himself in Mexico via 5 league titles with Tigres within the 2011 Apertura, 2015 Apertura, 2016 Apertura, 2017 Apertura and 2019 Clausura.