Former Mexico coach Ricardo La Volpe has slammed Juan Carlos Osorio's reign in charge of El Tri, declaring that he wasted what he considers the country's best generation of players.
- ESPN+: Stream ESPN FC TV daily and 30 for 30: Soccer Stories
La Volpe, who was in charge of the Mexican squad between 2002 and 2006, has been a fierce critic of Osorio and is adamant Mexico could've done better than a Round-of-16 finish at the 2018 World Cup.
"The big advantage that Osorio's generation had is that they already had international experience, there were [players] in Holland, others in Spain, in Portugal and other players that had been in England, Germany," said La Volpe in an interview with ESPN. "It's not the same when I was coaching with all of them [playing] domestically, it's a big difference with European football."
Osorio's squad qualified easily for Russia 2018 and defeated Germany 1-0 in the opening game, before crashing out in the final-16 with a 2-0 loss to Brazil.
La Volpe thinks the players Osorio had under his control could've done more, with Mexico going out at the same stage at the seventh consecutive World Cup.
"[The players] didn't know how they were going to play and for me it was the best generation of Mexicans that I have seen, from my point of view," said La Volpe.
The comments from La Volpe came after Osorio suggested in an interview with ESPN Brazil that Mexico didn't have the strength in depth of Brazil and that the players were silent when he asked them if they were ready to compete with the best.
Current Atletico Nacional coach Osorio has since cleared up that he made the comments before the World Cup and added that he couldn't be responsible for how his words were interpreted, but La Volpe wasn't happy that the Colombian had spoken about something that happened two years ago.
"It wasn't ethical, it wasn't right," La Volpe added.
"It's like if I told you that if we'd have had more punch against Argentina (in the Round of 16 in 2006), we would've won, because we had the ball, we were the protagonists," continued La Volpe. "The coach has to be responsible for the players not knowing how they were going to play against Brazil; the coach always has to be responsible, more than the players."
La Volpe added that "there was no defined system" during Osorio's time in charge of Mexico and that the rotation system meant players lost confidence.