Martino’s Mexico reign ends after World Cup group stage exit

LUSAIL, Qatar, Nov 30 (Reuters) – Mexico coach Tata Martino accepted full duty for his or her World Cup group stage exit and mentioned he won’t lengthen his contract with the federation (FMF) after they agonisingly missed out on the final 16 on objective distinction.

Mexico’s 2-1 win over Saudi Arabia proved inadequate as they had been eradicated from the match after ending third behind Poland, paying the value for firing blanks of their first two Group C video games – a goalless draw with Poland and a 2-0 loss to Argentina.

With Argentina beating Poland 2-0 and Mexico main by the identical scoreline towards Saudi Arabia, Martino’s aspect wanted another objective to keep away from crashing out on truthful play factors.

However Salem Al-Dawsari’s injury-time comfort meant marked Mexico’s earliest exit from a World Cup since 1978.

Martino took over at Mexico in January 2019 and was tasked with attaining the objective that had eluded them for greater than three many years: the World Cup quarter-finals. They final reached that stage once they hosted the match in 1986.

The Central People had superior to the knockout spherical of their seven subsequent appearances within the competitors however exited on the final 16 stage at each World Cup since 1994.

“I’m accountable for this disappointment. It’s a nice disappointment and I assume all of the duty of this large failure,” mentioned Martino, whose contract was reportedly on account of expire after Mexico’s World Cup marketing campaign.

“It has been eight World Cups since this occurred. My contract expired with the ultimate whistle and there may be nothing else to do.

“Throughout our match tonight, Mexico’s superiority was proven all through the sport. With Poland, we weren’t in a position to present the prevalence we had. With Argentina, we might have confronted the second half with our typical model.”

Figuring out {that a} win by no less than a three-goal margin would give them a combating likelihood of advancing, Mexico took the sport to Saudi Arabia and appeared to be on observe after going 2-0 up inside seven minutes of the restart due to Henry Martin and Luis Chavez.

Saudi Arabia goalkeeper Mohammed Al-Owais made a collection of excellent saves to thwart a fired-up Mexico assault, whereas Hirving Lozano and substitute Uriel Antuna had objectives disallowed for offside as Martino’s aspect searched in useless for the elusive third objective.

“That’s the reason we went for the it and introduced on two centre forwards, it was obligatory in that second due to the opposite outcome. We knew that Poland had fewer yellow playing cards,” Martino mentioned.

“We had already assessed that except many (Poland) gamers had been booked, this outcome meant that we had been nonetheless out.

“However we failed and I do not suppose we had been knocked out within the earlier matches, moderately right now. That is the fact. We’re ready of fragility as a result of we’re out of the World Cup.”

Reporting by Hritika Sharma, modifying by Pritha Sarkar

Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.