Mexico does just enough to get by Canada in 2nd match of CONCACAF U-20 Championship
Photo Credit: Seleccion Mexicana
By: Jonny Rico
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JAMAICA – The Under-20 squad of the Mexican National Team which is participating in the CONCACAF U-20 Championships were victorious on Monday afternoon over Canada’s U-20 by a score of 2-0. El Tri walk away with the three points and remain perfect through two matches despite the underwhelming performance.
Hiriving Lozano netted his third goal of the competition 30 minutes into the match to give Mexico the lead. And a well orchestrated counterattack finished off by Diego Lozano during injury time sealed the win for El Tri.
After their 9-1 win over Cuba, Mexico were expected to put on another dominant performance in their second match of the competition. The Mexicans did control the flow of the game as well as the possession of the ball during large parts of the match, but lacked that killer instinct that flourished during the opening match.
The first 45 minutes of the match could be summarized by bad Canadian defense combined with bad finishing by Mexico. For the second half Canada came out more organized and were able to hold off the reigning two-peat champions.
Pachuca winger Hirving Lozano was able to capitalize just one of the many Canadian defensive mistakes in the first half to turn it into the opening goal of the match. A long cross field ball was played out of the left side of the Mexican defense, Lozano snuck in behind the right Canadian defender and a powerful shot in front of the goalkeeper to open the scoring.
Nolan Wirth, the Canadian goalkeeper had to come up with big saves throughout the match in the first and second half to keep his side in the match and to prevent a big scoreline similar to the Mexico-Cuba game.
Thanks to Wirth save’s Canada had the opportunity to draw level with Mexico before the halftime break. A free header off a free kick went just wide, and a powerful shot from about 20 yards out went just over the crossbar in the final minutes of the opening period.
For the second half Canada came out more organized looking to avoid the danger that Mexico had created in the opening 45 minutes. But their attack lost the necessary punch to look for an equalizer. Mexico continued to see out the game searching for a second goal, but running into a Canadian defensive wall.
In the second of three minutes of injury time Erick Aguirre overlapped Lozano on the right wing and sent in a low cross to the top of the box where Lozano was waiting to get the finishing touch for Mexico’s second goal of the day.
El Tri will now go on to face Honduras on Thursday in their third group stage match of the competition.
