Mexico National Team

Mexico has gone into the empty belly of the beast and defeated the Netherlands 1-0 at Johan Cruijff ArenA. The game’s only goal — a penalty converted by Raúl Jiménez — was fortunate in that Jiménez was offside before the foul that led to the spot kick, but Mexico’s play in defense, midfield and attack was superior to the Dutch’s over the course of 90 minutes in Amsterdam.

Here are my five key takeaways after watching Wednesday’s match on ESPN2.    

#1. Tecatito is fun as hell.

It’s flown under the radar since it’s not within the FIFA International Match Calendar — meaning European clubs aren’t obligated to release players — but the Mexico national team returns to action on Wednesday night with a friendly against Guatemala at the Azteca. 

It’s been almost a year since we last saw El Tri (a 2-1 victory over Bermuda back on Nov. 19, 2019), but the likes of Miguel Layún, Uriel Antuna and José Juan Macías are finally back in action for the world’s 11th-ranked nation.

The first ever Gold Cup Group Stage Draw has pitted the USMNT against the foes from up north, Canada. Joining the U.S. and Canada in Group B is Martinique and the winner of a play-in round that will be one of the following teams: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Bermuda, Barbados or Haiti.

In case you are unfamiliar with the structure of the 2021 Gold Cup, I refer you here. 

After defeating Manchester City in both their meetings last season, many predicted another trial by fire for Pep Guardiola’s side against Wolves at the Molineux on Monday night, especially so with Nathan Aké and John Stones anchoring City’s backline.

But the opening 45 minutes was a master class in command from the Sky Blues (although looking very much like the Lilywhites) with Rodri and Fernandinho protecting the backline and Kevin De Bruyne, Phil Foden and Raheem Sterling playing in perfect harmony.

Napoli pounced on two defensive mistakes to win 2-0 at Parma in their opening match of the season on Sunday as spectators returned to Serie A for the first time since March.

Dries Mertens and Lorenzo Insigne got Napoli's campaign off to a winning start with second-half goals shortly after club record signing Victor Osimhen was brought on for his debut.

After scoring 17 goals across all competitions during his first season with Wolves — including 13 in the Premier League — many wondered if Raúl Jiménez would experience a sophomore slump last year as defenders came to grips with the Mexican striker.

That certainly wasn’t the case as Jiménez scored 27, including 17 in the EPL and 10 during his side’s run to the Europa League quarterfinals. What’s more, he outlined his overall contribution to the side by providing 10 assists across all competitions.   

CONCACAF and FIFA provided an update on the 2022 World Cup qualifying process with an announcement that the First Round is being pushed back to March 2021 due to COVID-19 concerns. 

Update on the Concacaf Qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 https://t.co/5OK6XtibM6

The preliminary draw for Concacaf 2022 World Cup Qualifying first round was revealed along with the schedules for teams in the Final Round on Wednesday. The usual Hex format has been scrapped with the new Octagonal. 

Eight nations will compete in the final Octagonal with five (USMNT, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras and Jamaica) automatically qualified. The three nations joining these five will come from this pot of nations.