Mexico, toothless and predictable, slumps out of Copa América after Ecuador stalemate, late drama

Mexico didn’t quite crash out of the 2024 Copa América; it slumped, gradually, impotently, to an early exit.

It drew Ecuador 0-0 on Sunday at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, failing to score for a second consecutive game — and losing the chance to snatch a dramatic stoppage-time winner after VAR overturned a penalty.

The draw doomed Mexico to third place in Group B, behind Ecuador and Venezuela. And it kick-started a long summer of questions about this generation of Mexican players, about the system that produced them, and about whether head coach Jaime Lozano is the right man to lead them toward the 2026 World Cup.

On Sunday, they opened with energy and intensity, with the desire of prideful players desperate to lift their soccer-obsessed country — but incapable of doing so.

They hurtled into tackles and plunged into 50-50 duels. They occasionally won the ball high up the field, and energized a roaring crowd in Arizona — but even when they did, they hardly created any clear-cut chances.

Whenever they ventured into the final third, they conjured zero creativity.

Whenever they formulated a clever pass in their brains, no teammate moved off the ball to bring that pass to life.

Whenever they wound up to shoot, or leapt for a header, they fired shots high or wide. None of their 10 first-half attempts ended up on target.

Every toothless incursion recalled the words of U.S. defender Tim Ream in March.

“We knew they were predictable. It’s the most direct Mexico team that there’s been,” Ream said after beating Mexico 2-0. “We knew exactly what was coming, and we knew exactly how to make the game ours.”

Ecuador, surely, did too.

The Ecuadorians also knew they needed only a draw. Their goals against Venezuela and Jamaica in earlier games gave them an advantage on goal differential. So they knew they could advance to a quarterfinal against Argentina without scoring again. The onus was on Mexico to find a goal, disrupt Group B’s table, and sneak into second place.

And El Tri couldn’t.

They howled for penalties, but never got one.

Feyenoord’s Santiago Giménez bustled into the box, but didn’t look like the fearsome striker he’s been in the Netherlands.

Luis Romo finally fired Mexico’s first shot on target after 64 minutes, but it was right down the throat of Ecuadorian keeper Alexander Domínguez.

Julián Quiñones tested Dominguez a minute later; and Giménez pounced on the rebound, but hit the post. They simply could not score.

So they were the first top seed to perish at the 2024 Copa América.

Their seed, though, was deceptive. They were, on paper, the second-best team in CONCACAF, but they are in the midst of a long-overdue rebuild. Lozano, apparently with more job security than some predecessors, omitted several mainstays, including Hirving “Chucky” Lozano and Raúl Jiménez, from his 26-man roster for the tournament. The idea was to break in unheralded domestic stars who’d been blocked on depth charts by national team veterans, but who could possibly contribute come 2026.

“We are two years away from our World Cup,” Duilio Davino, Mexico’s sporting director, said after the squad was announced. “[As co-hosts,] we have our spot secured, and we want to take advantage of this great opportunity to not think about the immediacy of the result and project our path to 2026.”

Lozano, speaking at the same news conference in Mexico City, agreed: “What’s most important is what we are building towards 2026 and 2030. If we focus on results, we’ll end up exactly where we almost always do.”

So they conceded, implicitly, that they probably wouldn’t win this Copa América.

But fans still expected more than this, more than one goal in 270 minutes, more than a group-stage exit that offered little-to-no evidence of progress.

Instead, it offered a reminder that the rebuild has been forced, that the generational transition has been anything but organic. It hasn’t been accelerated by a promising wave of youngsters. It’s been dictated from above by officials in search of new blood, whether that new blood will ever be robust enough to drag Mexico back to where it believes it belongs, in or around the world’s top 10 international soccer teams.

The caveat here at Copa América, and perhaps the convenient excuse for failure, is that El Tri’s captain and most accomplished player, Edson Álvarez, limped out of the tournament 27 minutes into Mexico’s opener.

But the end result was unequivocal.

Venezuela, which has never qualified for a World Cup, topped the group with nine points, and will face Canada in one quarterfinal Friday in Arlington, Texas.

Ecuador will get Argentina in another Thursday in Houston.

Mexico won’t play another competitive game until November.