Marquez concedes Mexico must get better after being booed off versus Chile

Syndicated reporting provided by Stats Perform and reviewed by the SoccerNews editorial team.

Rafael Marquez conceded Mexico have much work to do after a dispiriting 2-0 defeat to Chile extended his winless start in charge of El Tri.

Having taken over when Javier Aguirre resigned following July’s World Cup round-of-16 defeat to England, Marquez is yet to taste victory as his nation’s head coach.

Mexico opened the extended international break with back-to-back 1-1 draws against Colombia and Peru before losing 3-0 to the United States last Saturday, and they concluded their tour of the USA with another poor display on Tuesday.

Second-half goals from Maximiliano Gutierrez and Vicente Pizarro saw Chile leave the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as deserved victors and led to Mexico being jeered by the majority of the 56,000-strong crowd.

Chile won the expected goals (xG) battle by 1.2 to 0.63 and had two Opta-defined big chances to Mexico’s zero, despite only having a 35.8% possession share.

But while Marquez knows Mexico’s performances have not been acceptable thus far, he believes his policy of squad rotation has given him a good idea of what will be needed against Jamaica next month, in a CONCACAF Nations League quarter-final tie.

“We maybe struggled a bit in our defensive execution. We maybe started to have some doubts; it was really easy for them to get behind us,” Marquez said. 

“We tried to put the best team out there, especially because of the workload we’ve been carrying over these past few weeks, but it was clear that maybe wasn’t the best way to go about it.

Termina el partido en el Memorial Coliseum. #MarcadorFinal | @ATTMx https://t.co/4cfdx9sqHj

— Selección Nacional (@miseleccionmx) October 7, 2026

“The reality is that yes, we have to obviously keep working at this, we have to keep improving. There is a lot of room for improvement; we will address that.

“I think we have more clarity now going into the next matchup, which is a lot more meaningful. We will have to bring the players we need for these types of games.”

In the other CONCACAF Nations League quarter-finals, the USA will face Haiti, Canada will take on Guatemala and Curacao have been drawn against Panama.   

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