The Phantom at Estadio Azteca!

The Phantom in Mexico!

Welcome back to the IMOTGP blog, football fans, as international week is over. As you all know, the Phantom has once again journeyed to one of the sport's most venerable venues with a trip to see Mexico's easy 2-0 win over Canada on Tuesday.

Fresh off a 3-0 win last Friday over the same opponents, El Tri took command as Eintracht Frankfurt bust Marco Fabian was hacked down in the area in the first half and Andres Guardado converted the penalty. That set the stage for Tecatito Corona to strike right before halftime, as you can see below.

 

It was a rather routine and drab affair and some supporters voiced their opinion after half-time that El Tri should have made it 'tres' gols. Don't get it twisted folks, they were hardly booed off the field. It's just that the match didn't match the festive atmosphere that saw the Phantom downing his cerveza and chanting for Chicharito like the rest of the supporters. Of course, we at the IMOTGP blog wanted Chicha in there since Champions League-chasing Leverkusen have a match Friday against Wolfsburg.

In fact, he may not play at all according to Leverkusen boss Roger Schmidt, who told his team's website: "Chicharito only arrived back on Thursday morning. We sent him to bed first. He is used to making those long journeys. I’ll talk to him on Thursday evening to see how he feels." 

The bottom line after this round of World Cup qualifying in CONCACAF is that home teams outscored their opponents 17-0 in Tuesday's six games. Don't read into any result from any of those matches to determine the true value of any of these feeble footballing flops. For now, Mexico is the top-ranked team in the region and the Azteca is officially the favourite venue in the region for the IMOTGP blog thanks to the fan who bought the Phantom a cerveza! You can click on this sentence to see more from Tuesday night at Estadio Azteca.