Soccer-Mexico job full of pitfalls for Eriksson

[TheGift]

MEXICO CITY, June 3 (Reuters) - Sven-Goran Eriksson’s new job as Mexico coach may appear like a soft option to take him towards retirement but the reality is likely to be very different.

The Swede will carry the hopes of 100 million people who are increasingly exasperated at their team’s predictable habits of falling at the last 16 of the World Cup and capitulating meekly to their larger neighbours from the north.

In addition, he will face unpredictable and hostile conditions in the region’s tortuous World Cup qualifying process and is likely to get a cool reception from his squad, who have a collective soft spot for interim coach Jesus Ramirez.

Assuming Mexico overcome Belize in this month’s preliminary tie for which Ramirez will remain in charge, the former England coach will have less than three months to get to know the peculiarities of Mexican football and the psyche of his players.

He will then be plunged into CONCACAF World Cup qualifying competition which is looked upon as a formality for Mexico but rarely is.

At various points in the last decade, Mexico have lost qualifiers to Honduras, Costa Rica, Trinidad & Tobago (twice) and Jamaica.

They only sneaked into the 2002 World Cup after a change of coach and a home win over the Hondurans in their last game.

PRIVATE LIFE

Only when Mexico have negotiated the qualifiers can Eriksson begin thinking of the target which probably attracted to him the job in the first place, which is to take Mexico to the semi-finals of the World Cup, or beyond.

Mexico have hosted two of the most successful World Cups and the country is home to the richest league in Latin America, yet the national side remain perennial underachievers and have never gone beyond the quarter-finals.

In each of the last four World Cups, Mexico have been knocked out in the last 16 despite having looked to have the potential to go much further.

Eriksson is unlikely to have to deal with the intrusion into his private life which came with the England job but there are plenty of other difficulties.

Many players are loyal to Ramirez, who coached the Mexican team which won the under-17 world championship and has been caretaker of the senior team since April.

“(Ramirez) has plenty of experience with the national team, both with young players and experienced ones,” said defender Ricardo Osorio last week.

Jared Borgetti, scorer of a record 43 goals for Mexico, said: “We have the obligation to qualify (for the World Cup) and at this stage, I think we would be better off with a coach who knows Mexican football and not a big-name coach.”

Eriksson will certainly earn some breathing space if his team can give a footballing lesson to the United States.

Soccer used to be one of the areas in which Mexico could outdo its richer, bigger neighbour to the north.

But nowadays, the Mexican players appear to turn into a bundle of nerves when facing the U.S. and have won only two of their last 10 meetings with their arch-rivals.

Eriksson’s dream scenario would be for Mexico to march through the World Cup qualifiers and reach at least the semi-finals in South Africa.

The unthinkable is that they lose their preliminary round qualifier to Belize and get knocked out before he has even taken over.

ANALYSIS-Soccer-Mexico job full of pitfalls for Eriksson - World Soccer - Yahoo! Sports