Tales from Mexico

[PSVFOREVER]

Well, I made a little story about my adventures in Mexico Inspired by ShiftyPowers, my goal with the team is to win though Well, here's the first part, I'll try to post 1 part every day, unless you don't like it, so here it goes:

It’s July 2008, the 16th of July to be exact. I am the coach of the Mexican team Chivas. After a surprising championship last year with the team the board and the supporters expect nothing but keeping the title at the club. It is going to be very tough though, last year my team finished 12th in the closing stage of the league, but because I won all the play-offs I still managed to win the league.

The Chivas Cup has just finished, participants besides my team were Toluca, Cruz Azul and Vélez Sarsfield. Quite scary name isn’t it…., I wouldn’t want to live there, but I guess I already did because I managed them for more than 2 years. In this Chivas Cup my team made a very good impression, by smashing Toluca with 7-0, after 20 minutes the score was already 4-0. If the league results would be like this it would be a very very easy season. The other match ended 3-1 for Cruz Azul that is.

Chivas Cup semi-final:
Chivas-Toluca 7-0
1-0 O. Bravo 5 min.
2-0 H. Castillo 10 min.
3-0 J. Garcia 13 min.
4-0 C. Cariño 19 min.
5-0 H. Castillo 67 min.
6-0 H. Castillo 74 min.
7-0 O. Bravo 83 min.

Very impressive in my opinion, the final wasn’t that easy though. We were equal to Cruz Azul for the whole match and it ended in a disappointing 0-0: Penalty time. Considering I’m Dutch we will definitely lose this match, but hey, everything is possible, we won during EURO 2004 from penalties. That was mainly because of Zlatan though. He is being coached by Dutch coaches and he plays with Dutch players, but anyway, we lost the penalty shoot-out indeed, 3-1, can’t really care about the cup though. I never win those things.



It’s the 20th of July, we just got some interesting players in our squad. I hope some of the can take penalties….
The new players:
Edwin Barboa is a clinical striker that came from Tapatio for 1.5 million €.
Carlos Morales is a great fullback and he’s only 18 years old, I predict he will get into the Mexican National Team in 3 years.
Aaron Galindo is a great central defender. He’s 26 years old and already played 34 caps for the Mexican National team. He cost me 8 million.

An annoying thing with this Chivas club is that they have a stupid tradition of only Mexicans in the team, god I hate that, and they even let me sign Suleiman Mohammed, cause he got a Mexican passport, what is more Mexican, a Nigerian guy with a Mexican passport or a player from South-America/Mid.-America? I am not even Mexican for god sake. Why on earth do they let me manage them than.

I still have got 26 million to spend this season, but I can only spend it on Mexicans. You have a real problem when there aren’t any decent Mexicans around. Well, guess I’ll save it for some great Mexican player who will rise from the rest.

Haha, my first fight at the team, Francisco Rodriguez thinks there is too much competition for places, idiot, like he had a chance to play last season. He was my 4th choice, now he’s my 5th choice, big difference. Yeah, after this ‘’accident’’ he’ll be my first choice in the reserves. Let me literally quote him: ‘’I don’t feel up to play under so much pressure every week. Is that like a problem? For me it isn’t, if he doesn’t want to play, then he doesn’t play, simplest thing ever.

I have to play in the PrePreLibertadores fase, that makes sense, PrePre…..against Monterrey it is, the team that reached the final of the Mexican closing stage last year, I won from them in that final, with 2-0 and 2-2. After 10 seconds Palencia got the first chance of the match. He’s 35, but he’s still good enough for my team. After 20 minutes Edwin Barboa scored the 0-1, which was also the half-time score. God I buy good players, first match and he scores, and it isn’t Maxim Tsigalko, I would’ve tried to get him, but he’s not Mexican… In the second half Monterrey even scored! It was 1-1 after 56 minutes, but Palencia and Barboa (again!!!!) made it 1-3. A minute later it was 2-3 though, stupid long range efforts. I won with 2-4, Palencio scoring again in the 93th minute.

This were the shots:
Monterrey-Chivas
Goals: 2-4
Shots: 11-7
On target: 10-7

I love winning like this

Please comment if you like it, if you don't, then say why, so I can change it....

 

[jonnybarnes]

Its good, but i still don't understand how the Mexican League works.

 

[Tom]

very good Cody, really nice. Just hard to understand due to the fact i cant relate to the league and the players, my bad.



TROD.

 

[PSVFOREVER]

Well, for those who don't know how the league works: The mexican league is hard to understand btw

The league is divided in an opening and a closing stage.

The opening stage are the first 19 league matches, the closing stage are the last 19 league matches.

Every stage is a league title for itself.

The league has 20 teams (that's why you play 19 matches). Those 20 teams are divided in 4 ''virtual'' groups of 5 teams. The 2 highest teams from those groups qualify for the play-offs. The groups aren't actually being played, but they just count the league points.

Damn, this is hard explaining.

When you reach the play-offs it's easy, just quarter finals, semis and final home+away, away goals don't count.

I have a question, should I continue this game in Mexico, or shall I start a new game in Europe, which you guys know better?

 

[Áļéאָ]

Mexico rox

 

[Zlatan]

I still don't understand a damn thing of it but... I like your story

 

[PSVFOREVER]

Part two

It are very exciting times at my house, I just applied to become the manager of the Mexican team! It will be huge if I get the job, managing a national team is something special, the Mexican team is pretty crap though. Especially the attack looks very bad, even Palencio, my 35 year old striker who played 108 caps, is still in the squad.

There’s a lot of activity at the national team as you can see, but at the club it’s pretty quite, we don’t have to play a match for 2 weeks, that’s good, cause in Mexico there’s always something to play for, there’s only 1 month time between the end of the previous league and the start of the coming league. And to make it worse, you have to play friendlies in this time, or else they’ll be unfit and you don’t want your players unfit….There’s going something on at the club though, some crappy defensive midfielder is sold for 675.000 € to Atlante, we won’t miss him, atleast I won’t, I didn’t even know I had him. A manager as good as me doesn’t have time to check his reserves you know….

I got some new youth players in the squad, they look like they don’t have any potential, and they don’t, at least I think. If the youth system doesn’t bring up any good players I will have to look for the elsewhere, and I found a nice little 16 year old right mid, his name: Ricardo Pérez. He cost me 375.000 € and he came from Argentine Premier Division team Lánus. I also send some scouts to search for youth players in Mexico, they mostly only find crap 20 year olds, but hey, what else can I do with them.

Damn, Hugo Sanchez is the new Mexican national team manager, what a stupid decision, he was sacked from Pumas and relegated with Celaya for god sake. His first match at Mexico wasn’t a very good one, but what else could you expect, Grenada-Mexico ended in 0-1, it IS a win, but I never even heard of Grenada, it should have been 0-8 at least.

Well, the transfer dead-line has passed, but on this last day Suleiman Mohammed was added to the squad, he will be a back-up for now, this is what the first team will look like:

-----------------Sanchez----------------

-Morales-Sanchez-Galindo-Huitrón-

------------------Cariño------------------

--Medina----------------------Morales--

------------------Palencia----------------

------Barboa--------------Bravo---------

I guess that’ll look kind of random to you, but trust me the squad looks pretty good, stars of the team are Sanchez (DC), Galindo (DC) and Medina (MR). Remember those names… Talents in the squad are Morales (DR) and David Pérez, a 17 year old central defender.

Well well well, maybe the appointment of Hugo Sanchez instead of me was not a very good idea; today the return against Grenada was played. I ofcourse went to watch the game, what better to do in free time than going to a match? Mexico completely dominated the match, but you’ll always see the opponents will get 1 shot and score. This time it was in the 43th minute, a mistake from Melvin Brown led to the 0-1 from Seth Sinclair, the stadium was very quite, and if you know that it was played at Estadio Azteca, with an attendance of 103.000 people that’s something special. In the 2nd half Mexico kept spoiling chances, they scored 1 though, Gerardo Torrado, the one from Sevilla, scored his 12th goal for Mexico, in his 90th match. After the goal Mexico kept pressing, but their goalie was superb, unfortunately I can’t buy him, he isn’t Mexican you know.

It’s the 7th of august, time for the second match in the PrePreLibertadores fase, you know, to qualify for the Copa Libertadores, the South-American Champions League, I have to play Cruz Azul, always a tough match. I’m so lucky by the way, my first choice wingers are suspended (Medina) or injured (Morales). It’s frustrating that I have 5 defensive midfielders, but only 1 left midfielder. After 11 minutes Cruz Azul got the lead, Francisco Fonseca scoring, their midfielder Falcon (no, not Millennium Falcon) made a lot of great passes and also took part in the 2-0 in the 15th minute. God, my squad sucks. The 3-0 was a fact after 35 minutes, some Argentinian guy named Delgado scored. He scored the 4-0 too, in the 55th minute. My goalie is excellent in watching players shooting on his goal, now al he has to do is react to this shots. 4-0 was the final score, this means I’ll don’t play Copa Libertadores this year, meh, I already won it 3 times, 2 times with Velez and once with Boca Juniors. Palencio got a 3, he had the lowest rating of course. The guy that gave this rating must really like Chivas, if I had to rate my players, well, let’s say Palencio’s rating would be the average….

 

[Lean]

The Delgado guy is the same one at the Argentinian Olympic squad Cody. He scored against Brazil too in the Copa America final (too bad they lost but oh well...).

He's damn good both in game and IRL.

 

[PSVFOREVER]

Part 3

The last match of the PrePreCopaLibertadores fase was played, it didn’t really matter, because Cruz Azul won all 3 matches, and ended 1st, only the 1st qualifies. This match didn’t matter really, the match was Chivas-Tecos by the way. We started terrible and in the 8th minute the score already was 0-1. The players continued to play bad, totally no inspiration, but in the second half my team was completely different. The totally dominated Tecos and the award was a 1-1 in the 49th minute scored by our defensive midfielder Carlos Cariño. We kept attacking and in the 63rd minute the 2-1 was made by Omar Bravo. This was also the final score. I was happy with the victory even though it didn’t matter, 1 victory more in my career you know, maybe next time they’ll pick me as national team coach because I got this 1 victory more….

Mexico finally played impressive, a 5-0 victory versus Trinidad & Tobago, not that they’re anything to worry about, they must be something like Andorra. None of my players started in the first team though. Something I can’t understand, hello, we’re the reigning champions, have they forgotten that? 2 of my players came on later in the match by the way. But that’s not good enough, we are supposed to be superior!

Wooooow (did you know the spelling check thinks I am trying to spell Wolof or Wooer), big day today, the opening match of the season for me, my team has to play Jaguares at home. They already played 3 matches in the league though. The league is pretty messed up right now, I’ll have to win anyway. A boring first half with 5 shots for my team and only 2 shots for the other team resulted in a 0-0 halftime score. Somehow they managed to get 2 minutes injury time. My players are excellent in wasting chances at important moments especially Omar Bravo, but I can’t complain about him, the other striker didn’t even get chances. I have to take back what I said, I just see that Omar Bravo scored in the 61st minute. I don’t know how he scored because I was busy writing in this diary, well, try to focus on the boring game then. We got some good chances, we managed to miss them, you know, the usual stuff. And yes, I am always unlucky (apart from last season) in the 90th minute they score the 1-1, a stupid long range efford by Danish player, Morten Pedersen. What on earth is he doing in Mexico anyway? A Dane in Mexico, bah. It must have been a big step for him by the way, from FC Midtjylland to Jaguares. 1 point is not good enough for me, but better than nothing, with my current strikers it could’ve easily ended 0-1, with Maxim Tsigalko it could easily have ended 5-1.

20-8-2008:

Today I had to play Pachuca away. It’s the first time my whole first team squad is complete. Pachuca has 4 points so far from 3 matches, I have only 1 point from 1 match. I am 6-4 favourites at the bookies, somehow I always feel the team I coach is favourite. Not that I can blame those bookies, of course a team coached by me is favourite to win. Their star is a Belgian striker, it is strange to see that a lot of Europeans are playing in America at the moment.

5th minute: Jaramillo (Pachuca) scores 1-0 for Pachuca, 1st chance for them is a goal.
15th minute: Jaramillo almost scores from a freekick.
16th minute: Belgian striker Gregoire (Pachuca) scores 2-0 with a header.
44th minute: Palencio (Chivas) gets a great chance, but their goalie saves.
46th minute: Halftime, 2-0, very bad match by us, Jair Garcia comes on for Palencio
48th minute: Cariño (Chivas) gets injured, Suleiman Mohammed comes on.
70th minute: Gregoire (Pachuca) gets a great chance, shoots over though.
81st minute: Morales (Chivas) almost scores 2-1 with a long shot.
93rd minute: Jair Garcia (Chivas) almost scores with a bicycle kick, shot went over though. Final whistle follows immediately.

Pachuca-Chivas 2-0

That was the match, well, we lost and played bad. I have a lot of work to do because my squad plays very very bad. I actually am in the middle of trying to buy Jaramillo, last season he scored against me so he awoke my interest and now when I’m trying to buy him he scores again, I’ve got to have this guy. Jaramillo is a 29 year old Bolivian with a Mexican passport. He can play everywhere in the midfield as long as it’s attacking, he is right only though, which means I’ll play him on the right side of the midfield IF I get him.

Daniel Jaramillo

Today also this message was in the sports page of a Mexican news paper:
‘’Yesterday Chivas coach Hochstenbach had a secret meeting with Soto, the chairman of Huila in Colombia. According to a close friend of the Dutch coach he isn’t happy in Mexico and really wants to move to another country, Colombia in this case.
If Hochstenbach signs a contract at Huila it is expected that he will earn 18000 € a week. That’s 8000 € more than he earns now at Chivas.’’

According to Soccernet.com I even said I want the job. What a load of crap, I don’t even have close friends, besides, my short stay in Colombia wasn’t exactly a success.

Well, one day later I had a meeting with Vergara, the chairman of my current team. He was very angry at me because he actually believes I am interested in the Huila job. If the results don’t improve he will sack me according to him. In a meeting with the press he said exactly the same thing.

 

[Lean]

Cody's job is at stake. Anyway, the Mexican league is kinda strange. Here in Brazil before 2003 it was kinda messed up. Only half season games (no home and away), the first 8 qualified for the quarter finals, then home and away all the way to the final.

Santos finished 8th in 2002 and won the title.

 

[PSVFOREVER]

Originally posted by Grunger
Cody's job is at stake. Anyway, the Mexican league is kinda strange. Here in Brazil before 2003 it was kinda messed up. Only half season games (no home and away), the first 8 qualified for the quarter finals, then home and away all the way to the final.

Santos finished 8th in 2002 and won the title.

I finished 12th an won the league