Andrés Guardado did not hold back in a tell all interview with Fox Sports in Mexico, where he highlighted both the good and the bad of the Tata Martino era in front of Mexico.
Under Tata Martino results with El Tri were disappointing to say the least. Things started well as in 2019 Mexico won the Concacaf Gold Cup, but from 2020 until the World Cup 2022 it was one black eye after another.
Martino’s Mexico a year later would lose twice to the USMNT in the Nations League and Gold Cup final. While qualification to Qatar 2022 was never in doubt, Mexico played poorly during the qualifying campaign. Suffering from a poor generation of players at Qatar, Mexico was third in their group and in one of the biggest failures in Mexican soccer history, after 44 years were knocked out of the World Cup in the group stage.
Andrés Guardado on Tata Martino
Andrés Guardado who is now 37 and returned to Liga MX to play for Leon after a long stint at Real Betis, made sure to point out that Tata Martino’s style and the Mexican player were quite different from one another.
Guardado also pointed out that “Tata was made scared (by the federation) regarding discipline. Because of that Chicharito (Hernández) missed a World Cup.”
“We stop having days off, afternoons to go for a walk, which is nonsense, but that’s when in Mexico it is said, with reason, that he didn’t know the idiosyncrasies of the Mexican.”
“Tata did not conceive that as people we needed a free afternoon to leave the concentration and see your children, everything was very controlled. The results were not given and the days when we were not footballers, we could not be people, that affected mental exhaustion.”
Guardado also was quick to not blame Tata Martino for what happened to Mexico during the 2022 FIFA World Cup, “It’s not Tata’s fault, it’s ours because we are not used to that demand. In Europe that’s how it is, that’s why the Argentines are what they are, the Uruguayans, the English, the Germans, because for them everything is about competing and they are willing to do everything necessary, we as Mexicans have not reached that level.”