Mexico is likely changing managers (again, this is the 4th in 2 months) and is going with LigaMX winner and Club America manager Miguel "Piojo" Herrera.
http://www.record.com.mx/article/miguel-herrera-llega-al-tri-en-lugar-de-vuce
This probably won't change much as far as how you guys should approach the match, but it may change some of Mexico's personnel.
Thankyou Mexican Federation - if we can't defeat you on the pitch, you will defeat yourselves!!!
Getting more surreal every day!
NZ Football are the most competent sports body in the world by comparison...
Seems to be confirmed by international media in recent hours:
More on this Mexico manager musical chairs (quite why a Mexican club decides these things, beats me):
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/9299777/Mexicans-may-change-coach-before-NZ-games
"Mexico look set to change coach for the fourth time in less than six weeks with local media reporting that Victor Vucetich will be replaced by Miguel Herrera.
Vucetich, who presided over a win and a defeat in Mexico's final two CONCACAF World Cup qualifying group matches, will be sacked in a last-ditch bid to reach the tournament finals ahead of a playoff with the All Whites next month.
"The turbulence of the Mexican national team will take new victims and Miguel Herrera will step in," the Televisa network, which owns Mexican club America, said.
"Victor Manuel Vucetich will cease to be the national team coach and Miguel Herrera will take command to face the playoff against New Zealand, a decision made by (America owner) Emilio Azcarraga," said the sports daily Record.
http://prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com/2013/10/17/mexico-national-team-vucetich-fired-miguel-herrera-fmf-el-tri-club-america/New manager Herrera actually less successful in club football than Vucetich who he's replacing:
"Now he’s set to be replaced by a man who, while very successful in recent tournaments, has a résumé which pales in comparison to Vucetich’s. The 45-year-old Herrera has won one Mexican championship, though he’s in position to claim another. Vucetich has five Primera Division titles to his credit. He’s also won CONCACAF Champions League three times (in a row), two Copa Méxicos, two second division titles (early in his career), and has two manager of the tournament awards.
[In terms of league championships won] the side-by-side comparison between doesn’t flatter the incoming boss.
It all leads to the impression Mexico’s grasping at straws – struggling to accept the reality of their circumstances. That’s not something you could have said about the Vucetich hire, which carried the impression of a revered boss joining the team in its time of need (much as Javier Aguirre did last cycle, replacing Sven Goran Eriksson). Now, the FMF’s resorted to change for change’s sake.
Herrera may not be the man who couldn’t win at Monterrey — he may have matured from the young man who fell short four jobs ago — but there’s little reason to believe he’s a better option than Vucetich. This is a man whose 12-year coaching career is about to embrace its eighth job. In the face of Vucetich’s success of Monterrey, that speak poorly of Mexico’s decision-making process.
Rather than continuing to look at coaches as the problem, it’s time for the FMF consider something’s broken with this squad. Sometime after the successes of the 2011 Gold Cup and 2012 Olympics, Mexico did a face plant from which it’s been unable to recover, and given the constant has been the players, it’s time to stop placing blame with the coaches. Whether it’s chemistry, fit, motivation, or just a prolonged blip in performance, these players are not the star most thought they’d be. It’s a problem that’s transcended coaches.
But instead of taking that approach, the FMF seems to be adopting a two wrongs make a right view. If the squad’s broken, let’s break the coaching situation, too. Maybe the match between two fractured parts, a technical area as aimless as the talent on the pitch, will allow them to luck into the World Cup.
With Herrera, it may work, but odds are Vucetich would have come up with a solution. He just needed more than a month."