The end of Miguel Herrera as that of Jay Gatsby

The last chapters of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby depict the toil of Nick Carraway at attempting to give Gatsby's body a decent funeral. No one, from the streams of visitors that had flooded Gatsby's mansion during his many parties, cared to show up and say a last goodbye to the otherwise mysterious playboy. 'They were careless people', mourned Carraway at such a desolation.

The tragedy of Miguel Herrera at El Tri can well be compared to that of Mr. Gatsby if one takes into account that both characters share personal histories of truly humble past whose rising star eventually -and temporarily- made them famed, rich and beloved by everyone. The tale of the self-made men. Coming from a poor town in Hidalgo, Herrera made a football career as a diehard defender for Mexican clubs typically identified with the working classes like Atlante and Toros Neza. Fitzgerald is said to have based Gatsby on the story of Greek slave Trimalchio, who legally obtains liberty and through hard work amasses incredible wealth that subsequently squanders giving lavish banquets to impress his guests.

"¡Hay tiro! ¡Hay tiro!" shouted a cheerful Paul Aguilar using a country parlance which equates to something like "Let's get ready to rumble!" when his now former boss approached pundit Christian Martinoli at the immigration and customs spot somewhere between Philadelphia and Monterrey. Aguilar, known for his exuberant goal celebrations and his tendency to collapse when a rival whispers at his ear, would have shown Herrera his support in such a way according to Martinoli's coworker and former Mexico player Luis García. He went further on Guillermo Ochoa: 'You seem to me an average goalie, but even more average as a person with that mocking laugh during the whole flight back'.  

García's words regrettably reveal what we all began to know when the Dos Santos brothers pandered to Herrera's misbehavior via Twitter. Many of the players, perhaps those most questioned, formed an entourage of much self-indulgence and scarce self-criticism in the world of El Piojo. Not all were like that, but the images of a paralyzed and speechless Carlos Vela before a furious Herrera approaching Martinoli to give more verbal abuse in the boarding queue, and the apathetic remarks of Héctor Herrera ("I wasn't in charge of him"), also reveal how lonely Herrera was within a group of thirty or more individuals. El Tri has no leadership on moral grounds.

Soon after Herrera's sacking was made official, Javier Estepa, an Spanish journalist from Marca, tweeted that with the gone boss many of his former footballers may refrain from the national team too in retaliation. As much as anything happens in Mexican football lately, it is nonetheless true that national bosses have come and gone without any player voluntarily withdrawing from international duties out of a sense of solidarity. 'Professionalism', is how Andrés Guardado named it after the Panamá match.

Perhaps El Tri has become a protracted saga of lavish banquets like those offered by Trimalchio. Perhaps a good bunch of the Mexican players are like those visitors flooding Gatsby's Mansion within Fitzgerald's novel. The fact that Herrera now will fall into an oblivion after his great time of richness and fame tells so much as Gatsby's lonely funeral: it says much more about those absent than it says about the corpse.