"The word out was that after watching NZ bumble their way through draws against humble USA club sides Chivas and Fortuna many Mexicans agreed that a Mexican club side could beat the AW's no problem. "
Maybe RH has a cunning plan...
Mexico have selected their entire squad without a single overseas based played. Wowsers. In particular, no Javier Hernandez.
The thing I really like about this is that
A) their players haven't really done much long distance travel, whereas the europe based players are used to flying to a qualifier after a club game etc.. with little prep time and
B) these guys won't be used to wind/temp/horizontal rain that Wellington can turn on, on a regular occurance.. If we can get back home in the second leg with the game still acheivable then we have to be a decent chance I feel.
This
Some international football sites are saying the Mexican coach is being arrogant and patronising by leaving out his star players. The word out was that after watching NZ bumble their way through draws against humble USA club sides Chivas and Fortuna many Mexicans agreed that a Mexican club side could beat the AW's no problem.
The coach's reasoning is he did not think the Euro players would adapt quick enough to his playing style and their was too much travel for them. Considering they are all top level pro's it would be easy to call bollocks on that. Obviously there is all sorts of backroom politics going down. As Piney said who would not want to bring on a Hernandez or Dos Santos in a tight playoff game.
I really really hope we stick it up them....arrogant C**ts
As it has been pointed out it could all unravel for them. A bunch of club players....no matter how good will be under crushing home pressure for the first game. The longer the game goes on and its still close then the more likely they will fold to the pressure. Plus as has been pointed out they will now face a gruelling long flight to NZ, a different time zone and hopefully will have to train pre match and play in a cold wet stadium with a howling northerly gale. Most of them will have had zero experiance of these conditions.
I must admit that a small part of me is disappointed that we will not see the likes of Hernandez and dos Santos. Not every year do we get to see such an array of stars playing a serious match on NZ soil. Still a NZ victory will sooth any angst over that.
While I think many of the Club América players are not good enough for the NT, this notion that they're not used to "long flights" is a bit off thought. Most of them (even if just Liga MX players) have had Copa Libertadores (and some even CWC) experience, and the flights to Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and the South of Brazil are no joke, I agree the time diference is a bit of a problem. About the weather, Mexican clubs play often in the US (be it friendlies with their clubs or with the NT or in the CCL), so they have played in cold and windy weathers.
I still think Herrera is being an idiot not calling some of the European players and this is a pretty weak Mexican side, specially the defenders (Valenzuela is just horrible, then you add Rodriguez... ugh).
Maybe RH has a cunning plan...