In Defense of Herrera (the Coach, That Is)

It’s hard to know what to make of Miguel Herrera’s firing as head coach of the Mexicannational team. On the one hand, he absolutely deserved it if it true was alleged: you can’t punch people, no matter what they say about you, your tactics, what you look like, yourfamily, whatever. Moreover, in the state of Pennsylvania, where the offense occurred,second-degree (meaning non-consensual) battery (often confused with assault) carries with it a maximum prison sentence of two years for the perpetrator, or one-year if it is deemed thirddegree. 

We’re not going to get into the ins and outs of Pennsylvania law, but the point here is that the Mexican soccer federation (FMF) really had no other option. Coaches simplycan’t go around punching people when they get upset, because not only is it illegal in most countries, it’s also particularly bad behavior for a public figure or role model of anykind.

Fine, but the FMF’s move is not the thing bothering Off The Post. Rather, it’s the post-mortem of Herrera’s near-two year stint as Mexico head coach.

A lot ofthe talk he’s read centers around how controversial and combustible a figure Herrera was—err, still is. Sure, the Internet is awash with gifs of his exuberant touchline antics—particularly during lastsummer’s World Cup—, and some of his comments regarding referee decisions he disagreed with are outlandish, or even, disrespectful, but some of the reports claiming that the former Club America coach was on adownward trajectory and might have even been fired by the FMF anyway, are baffling to say the least.

Say what you want about Miguel Herrera the person, but as a coach, he absolutely turned theMexican national team program around when it was at its nadir. After all, he inherited a team that really should not have qualified for the 2014 World Cup. As we know, Mexico eked into theintercontinental World Cup playoff against New Zealand thanks to the USA’s two last-minute goals against Panama, which gave JurgenKlinsmann’s men a 3-2 win, and El Tri one last chance after it had exhausted many others. As traumatic a moment as that was for many Mexico fans, it happened, and the reason it happened wasnot because of a lack of quality in Mexico’s program or it’s individual players, but rather, it was a combination of coaching chaos (remember, four coaches in a month), and a collectiveloss of confidence and identity, which kept the team from scoring goals. When you have that perfect storm, that kind of loss of form can become a monster that feeds on itself.

But that was allbefore Herrera arrived. Once the then-Club America coach stepped in, the team found its mojo in front of goal, destroying New Zealand 9-3 over two games in the playoff, and it then went on to enjoy agood showing at the World Cup—although the 2-1 loss to the Netherlands in the round of 16 to two late goals (one a dodgy penalty) still stings. That said, ask any Mexican fan if they would havetaken that kind of finish before Herrera arrived, and most would have absolutely said ‘yes.’ Indeed, it was almost as if World Cup qualifying had never happened.

The ability tomotivate, to get players out of their funk and up for big games, to get them to believe in themselves, is the hallmark of a great coach. Psychology is such a huge part of this game, and the bestcoaches — Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti — know how to get inside the heads of players to turn things around when they need to. 

For all of hisoff-field foibles, Herrera did this. Sure, there were some questionable-to-bad results during his tenure—a 3-2 loss at Belarus, another 2-0 loss to the USA and, more recently, the 4-4 draw withTrinidad & Tobago come to mind—but this is international soccer, and unless you’re working with a team of Bayern Munich or Barcelona academy graduates with a superstar like LionelMessi or Arjen Robben in your team, there will be bumps along the way.

Granted, Herrera’s Mexico was on a poor run heading into the Copa America, which it then bowed out of atthe group stage (with a ‘B’ team, mind you), but the Gold Cup was always his priority, and the Gold Cup he delivered. Yes, it wasn’t pretty most of the time; yes, Mexico received acouple of really important, really questionable penalties along the way, but OTP would argue that in this game, most champions, particularly international ones, receive a moderate-to-hefty dose ofluck in one form or another en route to winning a major title.

Moreover, this is still a results business. Once you start getting into how prettily you win things, or how appropriately yourcoach behaves off the field (criminal acts not included), then you’ve got a whole new set of problems on your hands—just ask Brazil how that’s worked out for them.