Why doesn't 'Tata' Martino call Marcelo Flores?

Marcelo Flores expressed his desire to be able to play for Mexico in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and is currently on a tour with Mexico's U-20 team in South America for a series of friendly matches.

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Canada is giving a nod to 18-year-old Marcelo Flores and the United States is snapping up Mexican-American talent such as 19-year-old Ricardo Pepi, while Gerardo Martino's Mexican national team has virtually wiped out any Mexican player under 21 in the qualifiers for Qatar 2022.

Why doesn't 'Tata' call Marcelo Flores?

Tata' Martino refrains from a generational change in the Mexican national team. The Argentine tactician has used 31 players during the entire qualifying campaign for Qatar 2022, and only one of them is under 21 years of age. 

He has called up players such as Julián Araujo, 20 years old, for games in the Octagonal, but, in the words of the Argentine himself, they are called up to have a coffee with veterans such as Guillermo Ochoa, Andrés Guardado, Héctor Moreno, etc.

"He was in the first week of the preseason, but it was important for what he offered us against Chile to have him with us, to share a table, a training session, a coffee, a breakfast with Guardado, Ochoa, Moreno, Herrera, Jiménez. Let him start to think like a national team player and get to know those players he used to see only on television," said Gerardo 'Tata' Martino, prior to the game against Costa Rica, which was tied at the Azteca Stadium in the qualifying round.

Martino has only called two players under the age of 22 to the national team

The youngest player that 'Tata' Martino has played in the qualifiers for Qatar 2022 is precisely the LA Galaxy player Julián Araujo, who played 21 minutes against Panama, and, in addition to him, Diego Lainez, 21, who had a little more confidence in the match against Jamaica and later against the Canaleros, where he caused the winning penalty, matches in which he accumulated 60 minutes in the CONCACAF octagonal.

The Betis player is fortunate in comparison to players like Marcelo Flores, 18, and Omar Campos, 19, who see the possibility of making their debuts with the Tricolor in the final phase of World Cup qualifying as a long shot.

"This is a process, in the U-20, most of them are 17 or 18 years old, they have a way to go, compete to earn a place in the U-20, then in the senior team, the project is that they arrive in the best way, they are on the right track", justifies Luis Perez, coach of the Mexican U-20 National Team.

The justification of "respecting a process" contrasts with the policy adopted by other CONCACAF national teams, which have been nurturing their national teams with players under 21 years of age, as in the case of Ricardo Pepi with the United States, or Canada's intention to take Marcelo Flores, both teams with better performance than Mexico in the qualifiers for Qatar 2022.

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