The last time that Erick Sanchez got called up to the Mexican National team it seemed pretty clear that he was going to be one of the players left off the squad before the World Cup. He didn’t start in any of the 2 friendly games that the team played in the international break, and only saw a couple of minutes off the bench. Since the last international break, though, he went on to become arguably the best player throughout the Liga MX playoffs.
He had a key play in the game against Monterrey where he took off on a counter, and got brought down in the box for a controversial late game penalty kick. Against Toluca in the finals he and Luis Chavez gutted the Toluca defense with through balls, and he was key towards building those counters that allowed Pachuca to take a massive lead into the second game of the series. Last night we saw more of the same. Sanchez with the ball at his feet being an absolute nightmare for that Toluca midfield. Are his late season heroics enough to guarantee him a spot in Qatar?
Who Could Tata Martino Cut To Keep Erick Sanchez Around?
This is the real problem that Tata Martino is facing. There’s no question that Erick Sanchez has had a better season than someone like Fernando Beltran, but Beltran is on the outside looking in any way. Could we argue that he had a better season than someone like Luis Romo? That could certainly be the case, but Romo offers up a bit more defensively, and he’s more versatile, having the ability to play center back if needed. Realistically Sanchez would have to knock out someone like Orbelin Pineda or Erick Gutierrez to be able to catch that plane to Qatar. We don’t see him being able to overtake Charly Rodríguez or Hector Herrera, and Guardado. Even though he’s had a better season than virtually anyone that we named.
As we mentioned Sanchez is part of the 31 players that are booked to travel to Spain and play two friendly games with Mexico before the list is cut down to the 26 players that will be participating in the World Cup. Sanchez was clearly one of the players on the outside looking in during the last international break. Martino did say that he liked the sustained success that the Pachuca players had had over the full year and that was the reason that he called them up. It just seems hard to believe that Martino would cut some of the big names that we threw out there to keep Sanchez.
If He Does Get Cut Could We Consider That An Injustice?
You could certainly call it that, but there’s one thing that most people don’t understand about national teams. Luis Enrique, Spain’s manager, talked about this very issue in a recent interview. He said that he does take into account what his players do at the club level, and that’s why he has some new players in most call-ups. For him though, if his players don’t even play at the club level on a regular basis that’s not a dealbreaker. This is because he knows what he can get out of those players within his system, and therefore their performance with the national team is what he values the most.
Erick Sanchez has not even had enough chances to really show what he can do within Martino’s system. At least not publicly in games. On that premise it would “make sense” for Martino not to take him to Qatar. Does that mean that he won’t catch media scrutiny? No, he’ll still be questioned about Sanchez or whoever he doesn’t take. Martino himself also said he was going to be unfair to some players, but at the end of the day he can only take 26. We still feel Chavez is going to get cut despite being arguably Pachuca’s best player in their championship run.
