The reason why Gerardo Martino decided to bench Israel Reyes and gave his place to a sacred cow

The Mexican national team played against Nigeria in AT&T Stadium on Saturday night on the first of five games that they will face between May 28 and June 14, as they’ll also face Uruguay, Ecuador, Jamaica, and Suriname.

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Gerardo “Tata” Martino called up a 36-man roster as a preliminary list from which he’ll select the final team that Mexico will take to Qatar 2022, as he still hasn’t figured out all the players that will help El Tri have a worthy participation in the World Cup.

But instead of starting some of the players that are having a good streak and that have improved their level in the past months, like Club Puebla’s center-back Israel Reyes, the Argentine coach decided to start once again Héctor Moreno.

Why did Moreno start over Reyes?

Since the 34-year-old center-back returned to Liga MX at the start of the 2021-22 season, his level significantly dropped to the point of loosing the starting role in CF Monterrey, who hoped that he’d his experience helped them to have a solid defense but instead it became the weakest part of the team.

But that hasn’t stopped Martino from calling him and even keeping him on the starting XI above Reyes, who is followed by Club América, Chivas and a few teams from Europe, but given his young age, the Argentine coach hasn’t considered him to be a regular.

Even if the 21-year-old center-back from Puebla already has two caps, “Tata” decided to keep him on the bench as he said during an interview prior to the game that for the starting XI against Nigeria he was going to use mostly players that have been training together the longest.

Given that Moreno arrived earlier to the training camp as Monterrey were eliminated in Repechaje and Puebla until the quarterfinals, it was the Rayados player who received the chance of proving why he should be considered in the final roster.

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