The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Mexican players can have beef again
Mexico’s mantra for this World Cup is “No Excuses,” and that includes no complaining about the menu.
The team brought two tons of food to Russia, along with everything necessary to make their players’ favorites, including traditional tacos, cheesy quesadillas and, of course, their hot salsas.
When Colombian manager Juan Carlos Osorio took over the Mexico team in 2015, he gathered a staff that includes a mental coach, a kinesiology specialist, a recovery expert and nutritionist Beatriz Boullosa.
“Professor Osorio says it all the time, there are no excuses here, he’s a man that makes his decisions based on hard facts and he has opened the chance for every one of us in our respective areas to give something to the national team,” Boullosa told The Associated Press.
“We know that in the past, soccer has been ruled in the belief that: ‘since I was a player and that worked, it applies,’ but that is not how we run things around here, every decision is based on science.”
Boullosa has worked for the national teams since 2010. She was part of the staff that won the Under-17 world title in Mexico in 2011, and also worked for the Olympic team that won the gold medal in 2012, but coach Miguel Herrera was not convinced and let her out of the Brazil 2014 World Cup.
Osorio heard about Boullosa’s work and brought her along to take care of the diet and nutrition of the squad.
“Every player has specific needs, not just based on his position but also based on his physique and his performance in training and in games. It’s not the same for someone who played 90 minutes, to someone who stayed on the bench, we take every variable into account to make sure every player gets what they need,” Boullosa said.
The nutritionist is also responsible to monitor the nutrition supplements for the players to avoid any chance of doping violations. She says everything was supervised by a laboratory in Germany before the World Cup.
The team did not ingest any red meat from Mexico to avoid any chance of positive tests with clenbuterol, a banned substance that is widely used by Mexican ranchers as a growth-enhancer.
In 2011, five players from Mexico’s squad tested positive for clenbuterol, among them Guillermo Ochoa, the starting goalkeeper in this World Cup. The country’s federation ruled the positive tests were caused by contaminated meat. More recently, Mexican boxer Canelo Alvarez tested positive for the same forcing the postponement of his rematch with Gennady Golovkin.
“We started consuming red meat since we arrived in Denmark,” Boullosa said. “Players are carnivorous by nature and they are happy to get the red meat back on their diet, and in nutrition terms it was also important because it has great bioavailability and we had it banned while in Mexico.”
With red meat available, players can now eat all their favorites, and that includes tacos.
“We brought a lot of food and we also brought a chef to make every dish as the player likes it, we are making corn tortillas that taste like glory,” Boullosa added. “Players ask for their quesadillas and their tacos and that really helps psychologically, because you bring them closest to home.”
But there can’t be a good Mexican taco without their ancestral partner: the hot sauce, an item that also crossed the ocean from Mexico.
“We made a spicy chilipeanut sauce that is delicious, and we also have traditional salsas some of the super spicy and some mild ones,” Boullosa added. “We also brought cans of beans and corn. We are super loaded.” Philippe Coutinho scored in the first minute of stoppage time, and Neymar followed six minutes later to give Brazil a 2-0 victory over Costa Rica on Friday at the World Cup.
Unlike Argentina and Lionel Messi, Brazil is still in a good position to advance to the round of 16. Costa Rica has been eliminated. Neymar seemed panicked for most of the second half as his shots sailed over the bar or simply missed the mark, and he complained over nearly every call. In danger of ending in a draw, Brazil seemed nervous but composed itself through the seven minutes of injury time.
Coutinho was first to get the ball past goalkeeper Keylor Navas. Rising superbly to meet a header from Marcelo’s cross, Roberto Firmino nodded the ball down to striker Gabriel Jesus, who then flicked it to a sprinting Coutinho in the penalty area.
In the seventh minute of injury time, Douglas Costa whipped in a cross from the right and Neymar deftly tapped it into the net.
Both Firmino and Costa had come on as substitutes in the second half.
Brazil has four points in Group E and plays Serbia in its final match in Moscow on Wednesday. Costa Rica has zero points and cannot advance.
• Ahmed Musa gave Nigeria its first win at this year’s World Cup, and gave Argentina a gift.
Musa scored two secondhalf goals to help the Nigerians beat Iceland, 2-0, Friday and move into Musa gave Nigeria the lead in the 49th minute after Victor Moses sprinted deep into the Iceland half and curled a cross to the near post. Musa deftly controlled the ball before slamming it past Iceland goalkeeper Hannes Halldorsson on the half-volley.
He doubled the lead in the 75th. Picking up the ball on the left side of the Iceland penalty area, Musa mazed his way past Halldorsson and picked his spot in the Iceland goal. Iceland held Argentina to a 1-1 draw in its opening match, with Lionel Messi missing a penalty. And with Croatia routing the Argentines, 3-0, on Thursday, it opened the way for Iceland to claim the group’s second spot in the round of 16.
But Nigeria’s second-half display in Volgograd was arguably as good as any in the World Cup and came after a fairly dour first half in which the Super Eagles did not register a shot on target.
Nigeria coach Gernot Rohr made some tactical changes, including bringing Musa into the starting lineup to inject some pace into the attack. Also, Nigeria captain John Obi Mikel played in a more defensive role in midfield, his presence helping to shore up the defense against Iceland’s two-man forward line.
In Iceland’s 1-1 draw against Argentina, the team played with a lone striker.