At the NRG Stadium in the American Houston this weekend Mexico and Uruguay are facing each other in a friendly international match. Due to the large Mexican community in Texas, Mexico has a light home advantage, although the country does not seem to take this game too seriously.
Mexico:
Mexico, which in the last World Cup in the eighth finals was killed after a 0-2 defeat against Brazil, is facing a new era. National coach Juan Carlos Osorio stopped after the World Cup and delivered his contract. Since the Mexican Football Association has still not succeeded in defining a final successor, Ricardo Ferretti is currently acting as interim coach.
Mexico does not have any major international matches for the time being, so Ferretti uses this international time to get several new players to smell the national team. No less than nine players hope to make their debut against Uruguay. Famous names such as Andres Guardado, Hector Herrera, Javier Hernandez, Hector Moreno, Giovani dos Santos and Carlos Vela are not included in the selection. El Tri will therefore largely take part this weekend with a B-team, although the PSV-men Hirving Lozano and Erick Gutierrez did get an invitation. Lozano, in particular, has now grown to an absolute grandeur in the Mexican national team and has also made excellent progress in the new season at PSV.
Uruguay:
Uruguay also seems to be getting a new national coach soon, although it is not official yet. The national team is of course the eyeball of Oscar Tabarez, who has been the choice leader of La Celeste for more than twelve years. The 71-year-old nestor, however, is seriously ill and already ran on crutches at the World Championships. Nonetheless, the Uruguayan Football Association has made a proposal to stick to the national custody for another four years, but Tabarez has not yet gone into that. This weekend, Fabian Coito, the national coach of Uruguay Under 20, will take the honors.
Coito is in any case planning to build on the successes of Tabarez, because the current selection is largely identical to that of the previous World Cup. The main absentee is Edinson Cavani, but all other big names like Diego Godin, Jose Maria Gimenez and of course Luis Suarez are all part of the party. The Uruguayan press expects that Coito will not start experimenting and will start with exactly the same eleven names as in the World Cup quarter-final against 2-0. In that game, Cavani also had to go missing. After the tea Uruguay will probably rotate and PSV guest Gaston Pereiro can also hope for playing time.
PREDICTION: Under 2.5 goals @ 1.63
