The United States’ three objectives in opposition to rival Mexico in a 3-0 win in a pleasant match Saturday, Oct. 3 weren’t simply objectives. They had been presents.

That is how El Tri supervisor Rafa Marquez feels after the defeat to the rival United States, the primary lack of his brief tenure as Mexico supervisor after a pair of 1-1 attracts with Colombia and Peru to begin the legendary midfielder’s worldwide teaching profession.

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Regardless of the success he loved with the nationwide crew and at stops with AS Monaco, FC Barcelona, and Membership León, Marquez mentioned he had misplaced greater than he’d gained in his profession – one thing that he hopes will enable him to extra simply encourage his gamers who made particular person errors in Saturday’s defeat.

“The falls are laborious. It hurts to lose, particularly like that,” Marquez mentioned in his post-match information convention. “They had been extra presents than right strikes from the opponent. I’ve to be constructive, see constructive issues, attempting for us to make as few errors as doable within the subsequent sport.”

That subsequent sport comes Tuesday, Oct. 6 in opposition to Chile. Whereas it’s a pleasant, like the opposite three matches Mexico has performed to this point with Marquez as its supervisor, there may be an growing quantity of stress for the crew to carry out and ship the primary victory with Marquez on the helm.

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If it does not are available in that match, which can happen in Southern California, Mexico would head into the Concacaf Nations League quarterfinals in November, official matches, nonetheless in search of a debut win with the brand new supervisor.

“We all know wins are essential, however now we have to recuperate, see how persons are who got here out of the sport to face the match Tuesday with the seriousness we want,” midfielder Erik Lira mentioned. “After that, we won’t neglect these are preparation matches, and we’re making ready for one thing very large.”

The objective is for Mexico to ship an enchancment on its efficiency on the 2026 World Cup, when Marquez served as assistant coach to Javier Aguirre and Mexico misplaced to England in a hard-fought spherical of 16 match on the Estadio Azteca.

However errors from particular person gamers made it troublesome for Mexico to succeed in that very same sort of stage in Arizona, with goalkeeper Raul “Tala” Rangel first spilling a cross into the trail of U.S. ahead Julian Corridor, then seeing an tried go lower out by American midfielder Cavan Sullivan.