Call it lackluster and dull, but every analysis of the Mexico victory in Honduras should take into account the astute tactician seated in the other bench. By the implementation of strategies and tactics which appeared counterintuitive, Jorge Luis Pinto outfoxed all of his peers between 2013 and 2014 at the helm of Costa Rica. One good example of this was his use of a three-men defensive line: the tactical textbook says a third central defender becomes redundant when playing against a lone striker formation and thus becomes one player less in midfield.
Well, during the World Cup the man stuck to his plan and his success even forced Italy and Uruguay to play Pinto's tactics facing each other to claim the last berth to the last 16 after Costa Rica's early qualification. A recall of that match's tactics by Michael Cox might help us at understanding why El Tri's show in San Pedro Sula made a great deal of Mexican fans fall asleep:
You can’t judge any match purely – or even primarily by formations alone. But if there’s one formation match-up that should be avoided at all costs, it might be 3-5-2 against 3-5-2. It tends to produce slow, frustrating matches with neither side capable of finding space in the opposition half – both sides have a spare man at the back, the wing-backs run up and down the line with one another all game so there’s no outlet on the flanks, and the midfields tend to cancel each other out.
In other words Mexico and Honduras were playing the same formations. Those might have been 3-5-2 against 3-5-2 making the boredom Cox notes, or 3-4-3 against 3-4-3 (evidence suggests this latter was the precise case here), but the fundamentals remain the same: it was a squad matching up another squad on a football field and vice versa. Miguel Layún knew he had to cover Emilio Izaguirre, Hugo Ayala knew he was there for Érick Andino, Héctor Moreno knew his man was Mario Martínez and so on. At times, both teams were actually man-marking instead of zonal-marking and that became fatally evident within the open angle that captured the whole pitch in the build-up towards Garrido's devastating knee injury:
Honduras playing with three center backs like Mexico, Oswaldo Alanís makes a decoy run on the left wing to lure Wilmer Crisanto on him and open space for Javier Aquino to pick the ball, Aquino does so and gets past his man-mark (Johnny Palacios); Crisanto suddenly realizes a central defender has get caught up in the field and runs frantically to tackle Aquino and stop him. Crisanto gets Aquino down and involuntarily injures his teammate. In the frame, one even can see Mexico and Honduras playing 2014 Costa Rica tactics: Javier Hernández is alone in front of three defenders like the Honduras nine, Rubilio Castillo, in front of three Mexicans.
Juan Carlos Osorio was clearly deploying attrition warfare against Jorge Luis Pinto. In a game of equal formations and man-marking, the side better prepared physically and with more individual quality usually beats the side less prepared and with less talent. Pinto, strategically speaking, used to beat bigger sides (Uruguay, England, Italy) harnessing on their need to get past a lesser side, but Osorio here outfoxed him harnessing on Honduras' need to get the three points after their loss to Canada.
In spite of Osorio appearing now as a boring and gray man in the eyes of many, his first away victory in Concacaf proves him a coach that does study his bench rivals no matter how humble the opposition might appear.
