AUSTIN, Texas — On one side of the U.S.-Mexico rivalry, Mauricio Pochettino beamed. After the 2-0 win against Panama on Saturday, cheers poured onto the pitch. Fans chanted Pochettino’s name and a banner with his face summed up the general mood of the U.S. men’s national team: “Believe.”

On the other hand, in Puebla, Mexico, it rained boos.

After a 2-2 draw with Spanish club Valencia, it rained for the fifth time in six games in a friendly that should have provided a pressure-free atmosphere to build up to. But of course there is nothing like that in Mexican football. And as the USMNT travels south to meet their archrival for the 78th time on Tuesday (10:30 p.m. ET, TNT), the atmosphere around them is El Tri is full of dissatisfaction and discomfort.

To calm the situation, Mexico fired Jaime Lozano in July and hired Javier Aguirre, its fourth coach in less than two years.

Aguirre spoke early in his tenure of his desire to “give fans what they’re looking for” and “make sure all fans leave happy with what they see.”

But frustration returned at the end of his second game, a 0-0 draw against Canada at a two-thirds-empty AT&T Stadium in Texas.

And a month later, after Saturday’s draw against a Valencia B team, fatalism set in.

“Neither (Aguirre) nor anyone else has a ‘magic wand’ to end our football crisis,” wrote popular TUDN pundit David Faitelson on X.

Former national team full-back Miguel Layun called for “everything” in Mexican football to be questioned, starting with the development processes. “You have to do some introspection, do a very thorough analysis and start correcting from the bottom up – even if it costs us the 2026 World Cup,” Layun said.

The crisis in Mexico cannot be blamed on the coach

The recurring outcry was counterproductive in many ways. In the past it has hindered continuity and collective growth. Now, however, at least some parts of the Mexican soccer establishment are looking for the source of their pain and reckoning with it.

Of course, the cause does not lie in the coaching training of the senior national team. Tata Martino, the first of the four youngest coaches, was not the reason Mexico was eliminated from the 2022 World Cup group. Neither he nor Lozano nor any of the 18 men who trained El Tri In the 21st century, this current group of Mexican players could rise to the elite level of soccer.

These actors and the systems they have shaped appear to be the problem. There has long been a mismatch between the expectations and reality of the Mexican player pool, but it has become particularly evident in recent years. In 2018, Mexico could field a starting XI made up largely of clubs from Europe’s Big Five leagues or the Champions League. In 2024, only three of the current 27 players will be playing at this level; 19 of 27 play in Liga MX.

That’s not a blow to the Mexican league, which remains the pinnacle of North American club soccer. Nor is it an attack on any of these 27 people; When they put on the green jersey of the national team, they almost always fight like crazy for the badge, for each other and for their country.

But they are not good enough. They haven’t grown as much as their predecessors. Liga MX clubs have been hesitant to transfer them and are willing to pay them – keeping them at home, away from the precious inconveniences of the European circuit, and likely slowing their personal progress, just as staying in the MLS would would do for mid 20’s American player.

There are probably many other reasons for the decline in quality – most of them controversial, some diagnosed, others less clear. The reality is that the current Mexican national team is… relatively ordinary.

Aguirre’s return was marked by constant pressure

So Aguirre came to the rescue for the third time El Tri from a crisis. He was on the field when Mexico last won a World Cup knockout game in 1986. Shortly after his retirement, he moved into coaching, managing ten different clubs and three different national teams – Japan, Egypt and his native Mexico.

In his first two stints at the Mexican helm, starting in 2001 and 2009, Aguirre sparked stuttering World Cup qualifying cycles. However, when he took charge again in August – this time with former player Rafa Márquez as assistant – he noted that this third assignment was a very different task.

“There is a project that is not just about saving three World Cup qualifiers,” Aguirre said. He praised the long-term vision of the Mexican Football Federation. There are no qualifying matches, only friendly matches and regional tournaments; and “enough time to put together a good team by the 2026 World Cup.”

Of course, that was also the company line before the 2024 Copa América. Sporting director Duilio Davino said he left out veterans and selected an experimental squad: “We want to take advantage of this great opportunity not to think about the immediacy of the result and plan our path until 2026. “

Then they reacted to the result, elimination from the group stage, and fired Lozano – because the pressure cooker never gives in.

So here they are again and the dissatisfaction is inevitable. Aguirre and the players say they get it.

“The criticism comes because the team is not playing well,” Aguirre admitted on Monday. “People have the right to express their dissatisfaction.”

“We know that’s what it’s like to play in Mexico,” defender Jesús Orozco Chiquete said on Saturday. “(The fans) are demanding and want results.”

And they surely know the criticism will mount if they don’t win in Guadalajara on Tuesday against a USMNT missing Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie and seven other starters. Americans would describe a loss as understandable; In Mexico, however, a loss would only cause more alarm.

“To be in the (Mexican) national team, you have to be prepared for the pressure,” veteran midfielder Andrés Guardado said Monday. “You have to be ready to take on this kind of responsibility.”