Club America’s Alejandro Zendejas is one of many players that have the option to represent both Mexico and the United States at the international level. Many players that have this option have flirted with both countries until making their final decision. Ricardo Pepi was one of the latest examples. The FC Dallas product that now plays abroad never really had a ton of interest from Mexico, and moved through age limit national teams in the US Soccer system for his whole career.
Zendejas on the other hand did play for the US at the youth ranks before getting a couple of call-ups with El Tri. Those call-ups have actually come into question as of late, as Zendejas would’ve had to inform FIFA of his decision to exercise his one time switch option to go from playing with US Soccer to Mexico’s national team. This confusion has essentially afforded Zendejas a second chance to make a decision between the US and Mexico, and this is the point in the story that we find ourselves in!
The Latest Development In The Alejandro Zendejas Story
A lot has been said about the Alejandro Zendejas situation. At this point trying to separate fact from fiction is hard to do. One of the first rumors that came out indicated that Zendejas was willing to sign his one time switch document to relinquish his chance to play with the USMNT in favor of Mexico. His condition to sign on the dotted line was that Mexico head coach Tata Martino guarantee him a spot on the Mexico roster that will compete in the Qatar World Cup.
Martino has already publicly declared that he would not guarantee Zendejas’ spot on the roster. In fact, he didn’t even get a call up from the latest friendly game that Mexico held against Paraguay. Even though basically 100% of the roster was made up of players that play their club football in Liga MX.
ESPN reporter John Sutcliffe recently shared what his sources claim was a true version of the story. It turns out that in fact Zendejas had solicited the paperwork to make his one time switch from the US to Mexico back in March. The process, though, it turns out is not as easy as sending an email to FIFA to let them know that you’re making a switch. The paperwork arrived at the offices of the FEMEXFUT in Toluca, and they sent a representative to get Zendejas to sign it. This happened around May, and by this time Zendejas was not so sure that he wanted to make the switch after all.
The Novela Will Most Likely Have A Happy Ending For Zendejas
Although Zendejas is having a breakthrough season he isn’t exactly the youngest member of Club America’s roster. At 24, he’s at just the right age to be able to take that next step and become a regular on the Mexican national team. However, it seems like he’s on Tata Martino’s blacklist that includes Chicharito. There’s one thing, though, that Zendejas has going for him that Chicharito doesn’t have. He’s a Club America player, and let’s be real about this, Club America players usually get preferential treatment over other players when it comes to the Mexican national team.
The forces that are against Zendejas’ happy World Cup ending is the fact that Gerardo Martino basically has one foot out the door. He won’t continue being Mexico’s manager after the World Cup. In a final act of defiance Martino could very well leave Zendejas off the list. With no one to really check him after the departure of Gerardo Torrado as the national team director, Martino final Qatar list could be made out of spite.
