Mexico stops seven-game winless streak against the US with friendly victory

GUADALAJARA, Mexico (AP) — Raúl Jiménez scored on a 22nd-minute free kick and set up César Huerta's goal in the 49th as Mexico stopped a seven-game winless streak against the United States with a 2-0 victory on Tuesday night in Mauricio Pochettino's second game as the American coach.

Mexico had five losses and two draws against the U.S. dating to a 3-0 win in September 2019 at East Rutherford, New Jersey.

With nearly a dozen regular players missing that included Christian Pulisic, the U.S. failed to have any first-half shots for the first time since an April 2023 exhibition against El Tri that ended 1-1.

American players not at the game included defenders Sergiño Dest, Chris Richards and Cameron Carter-Vickers; midfielders Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie and Luca de la Torre; and attackers Tim Weah, Folarin Balogun, Gio Reyna and Ricardo Pepi.

Defender Mark McKenzie was in the original starting lineup but because of soreness in his left groin was replaced by Miles Robinson just before kickoff.

"Overall Mexico was a little bit better and fully deserve the victory," Pochettino said. "For us it is a process. It was a great opportunity for our players to visit a very difficult place to play. We can only improve and learn from this experience.”

Jiménez curled a 25-yard-plus shot past Matt Turner for his 34th international international goal. Jiménez created the second goal after he ran onto a through pass, had Tim Ream knock the ball away, they regained possession from the defender and centered to Huerta.

Huerta slid around Robinson and beat Turner from near the penalty spot for his third international goal.

Pochettino, hired last month to replace Gregg Berhalter, led the Americans to a 2-0 win over Panama in his debut Saturday.

His first competitive matches will be next month in a two-leg CONCACAF Nations League quarterfinal, likely against Jamaica. After that, Pochettino has just six international windows before players report ahead of the 2026 World Cup.

“We need to play more games like this in order to compete,” Pochettino said.

Javier Aguirre won his second game since replacing Jaime Lozano as Mexico coach in August. El Tri was coming of a 2-2 draw against the Spanish club Valencia last weekend.

“I think that the team was aware of the bad performance in Puebla, they wanted to prove themselves that they were capable of playing better,” Aguirre said.

Fans at Akron Stadium yelled the homophobic chant that led to fines imposed by FIFA, but Costa Rican referee Keylor Herrera did not stop the game.

Andrés Guardado started in his 182nd international match and left to a loud ovation in the 19th minute of what he said was his national team finale at age 38. He was greeted by every member of the team.

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