Guillermo Ochoa could start at the World Cup | OneFootball

To the surprise of some, Memo Ochoa was part of Javier Aguirre’s call-up list to play in the 2026 World Cup with the Mexican National Team.

The goalkeeper who came through América’s youth academy arrived after a season in Cyprus where, generally speaking, he did well, but the low level of the league raised many questions about his call-up.

Raúl Rangel, Chivas’ goalkeeper, has been the Mexican National Team’s starter in recent matches, so that made it seem like he would be the unquestioned choice for the World Cup.

But according to information from ‘Azteca Deportes,’ Javier Aguirre intends to make Memo Ochoa the starting goalkeeper for the opener against South Africa at Estadio Ciudad de México.

There would be two reasons for this. The first is that he has looked very good in training, and he also performed very well after coming on as a substitute in the friendly against Australia, while ‘Tala’ made a mistake that nearly cost the national team a goal.

The second reason would be experience. ‘Tala’ Rangel has not played a single official match with the Mexican National Team, so if he were to play in the World Cup, it would be his debut in an official tournament, and well, there’s no need to go on about the vast experience Memo already has.

This would be a very similar situation to the one seen before the 2010 World Cup. Guillermo Ochoa was shaping up to be the starting goalkeeper, but Javier Aguirre felt he lacked experience, so he decided to call up ‘Conejo’ Pérez and make him the starter over Ochoa, who was shining with Club América.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.