📣 Ochoa on Mexico's form, Chicharito's absence and World Cup pressure | OneFootball

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Emily Wilson·23 September 2022

📣 Ochoa on Mexico's form, Chicharito's absence and World Cup pressure

Article image:📣 Ochoa on Mexico's form, Chicharito's absence and World Cup pressure

Club América goalkeeper Memo Ochoa held nothing back in a recent interview with ESPN when discussing Mexico’s World Cup preparations.

Here is what he had to say.


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On Mexico’s current form

“Sometimes you have to look at the numbers coldly and I think that the national team, two months before the World Cup, we are 80%,” he said.

“We have time to reach that 100% … it will come [eventually] when you start seeing people in airports, in hotels, in stadiums, the whole environment, the level goes up. It is normal. It happens in all the teams.


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On feeling World Cup pressure

“[This time] it is more about revenge, about wanting to do something different from what we have done before.

“I have this thorn stuck that I want to try again. I want to fight again. It cannot be that we do not advance further than the round of 16. I think we have more.

“[We have lacked] that perfect game at the perfect time, just as we have done in some games in other phases.

“The [pressure from media] is wanting to generate information, content for so many programs, because soccer in Mexico is the number one passion, it is what moves (people) the most.

“Sometimes more is demanded of the soccer player than of the politician … It is a topic that sometimes bothers.”


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On Chicharito’s absence

“Javier Hernández (Chicharito) is an extraordinary striker, a historic player for Mexico. Many things have been discussed. He has nothing to do with us or with personal issues; it is a matter for the coaching staff, who have decided on other forwards.

“The group would welcome him; I and the others wouldn’t have any problem with him being with us … he would be someone who would come to add, to work, and give the best of himself, as he has always given.


On working with Tata

“From day one and to this day he has been respected, and I think Tata has looked at the same way of playing from day one until today, which is important because it’s not easy to find something like that when you have little time to work because you can’t be changing 26 players every time.

“We know each other well, we know what we’re playing … although we have had important victories like the one against Germany; [the upcoming games] are preparation games and you have to be calm.”


Mexico face Peru on Saturday before their game aginst Colombia on Tuesday.