Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Sven me some Goran news

Luis Bueno is a freelance writer based in Riverside, Calif. and writes for SI.com, The Press-Enterprise and MLSnet.com.

Mexico got their man. Sven Goran Eriksson is now the boss of El Tricolor. The picture there is the cover of Cancha, a Guadalajara sports daily. The headline reads "Proud (and in Spanish)." Eriksson speaks five languages (Swedish, German, English, Portuguese, Italian) but Spanish is not one of them. However, he said at a press conference that he'd have to be stupid not to be able to learn Spanish. Still, if the response from players is any indication, Sven's stint in Mexico won't exactly be comfortable.


Some stories:
Mark Zeigler of the San Diego Union-Tribune has a piece on Eriksson's hiring and how it went down after training.


Grahame L. Jones of the Los Angeles Times has more on Eriksson and some of the discontented players, who include Jared Borgetti and Carlos Salcido. Borgetti, though, was all but gone from the national team until the latter part of the Clausura 2008 season, so he doesn't exactly have the same status as he did in say 2002.


Brian Homewood of Reuters talks about some of the pitfalls Sven faces in Mexico, which include the lack of elation from players as well as the likely intrusion into his personal life.


The Telegraph, meanwhile, quotes Borgetti as saying that the move was a bad idea.


I wrote a piece for SI.com but just filed it early this morning. When it runs, I'll post a link. In short, though, I think that the long-standing requirement of a coach having to know the Mexican league before being hired is a bit unrealistic. Hugo Sanchez, after all, knew the league very well and where did that get the national team? It certainly got the Under-23 team nowhere.


The Times, meanwhile, had some analysis and also felt compelled to add a list of famous Mexicans, which includes Oscar De La Hoya and Speedy Gonzalez. Thanks. They forgot El Chapulin Colorado and Salma Hayek, though.


Interim coach Jesus Ramirez will guide Mexico tonight as Mexico plays Argentia in San Diego and on Sunday when Mexico plays Peru in Chicago. Also, he will be coach when Mexico plays Belize in World Cup qualifiers on June 15 and 22. However, unlike Bob Bradley, even the best results won't help him keep the job beyond his interim tenure.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sven is very fluent in Italian which means it should not take him too long to get a working command of Spanish. As for knowing the league, I think that is the point. The last few coaches have known the league pretty well and yet Mexico seems to have hit a plateau. Maybe Eriksson will give them that extra "something" they need to "move to the next level".
Mexicans certainly love and support their team more than the English do theirs. Mexican talent is just as good and may be even deeper than England's. Maybe there is a lesson here for the USMNT. John

9:58 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Grahame Jones of the LA Times is the snobbiest soccer writer in America.

He's an old fart---I wonder if the Times will give him a retirement package.
Hopefully before the next World Cup, so we don't have to be exposed to his Euro snob, anti-America, nonsense.

1:53 AM  

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