The Rafa Márquez Era: Lozano Leads El Tri's First XI and the Midfield Equation Against Colombia

Hirving Lozano takes the ball on the right flank, pauses for a beat, then changes direction. There is no sprint. Just a slow, measuring touch, as if he is asking whether this pitch still remembers him. Outside the touchline, reporters from RÉCORD log every group of players in that Baltimore training session and describe the lineup they see as "beginning to take shape." I read that line three times.

A friendly usually does not deserve this much dissection. But this is not an ordinary friendly. It is the first match of the Rafa Márquez era, and anyone who has ever sat in front of a screen waiting for a major patch knows the feeling: new map, new champions, and a lineup nobody has ever seen run for real. Watching the clip a third time, I think of a line I keep in my notebook: the script is the map, but emotion is the actual rotation.

A hot seat with no backup of experience

Rafa Márquez needs no introduction. For anyone who has followed Concacaf football for two decades, that name is tied to World Cup summers, to the captain's armband, to a career usually described in solemn words. But football has a cruel rule I have recorded many times: they hand a legend the coach's chair, then immediately ask what he has beyond his past. "Great player, unproven manager" — that sentence repeats in every football nation, and it will repeat in Mexico.

The opponent for the debut is Colombia, in Baltimore. A match on American soil, between two football nations from two different confederations, and that is no coincidence. Colombia is the kind of opponent I call a hardness test: a physical midfield, clear structure, eager to press and break rhythm. For a team that has just changed coaches, choosing a South American side rather than a weaker one is a deliberate decision — they want to know where they stand, and they want to know early.

Into that context two other fragments slip. Santiago Giménez has a right adductor issue and is training separately. Jeremy Márquez has a lower-back contracture and could not complete the session. There is no official statement on whether either will play, only cold notes about training load. For a new coach, that is the worst kind of information: enough to disrupt the plan, not enough to announce a change.

One thing must be said clearly about the international window. During this period, clubs are obliged to release players, and every minor injury becomes a quiet negotiation between federation and club. No rule is broken here. But there is a familiar tension: the national team needs experimentation, the club needs its asset intact. A new coach is usually the one who loses that negotiation, because he does not yet have the leverage to demand anything.

The 4-3-3 and its three layers of meaning

The lineup observed by the media looks like this: Rangel in goal; a back four of Gallardo, Johan Vásquez, Reyes and D. García; a midfield three of Erik Lira, Chávez and Gilberto Mora; a front three of Alvarado, Alexis González and Lozano.

The first thing that strikes me is not who was chosen, but how they were arranged. A single holding midfielder — Erik Lira — sits in front of a centre-back pair of Vásquez and Reyes. In my language, that is a "one man holds mid, two push up" shape. It is not glamorous. It is not a tactical invention. But it is the most sensible choice for a debut. Lira is stationed there not to launch attacks but to insure a centre-back pairing that has not played together much — a sign Márquez understands that a first match needs an anchor, not a gamble.

The two players standing higher than Lira are Chávez and Gilberto Mora. Chávez is familiar domestic-league stock. Mora is something else: a teenage midfielder, not yet twenty, appearing in what is presented as the strongest XI. I once wrote that when Pedri speaks, I hear Faker calling mid lane. This time I hear a different version — the voice of someone too young to be called a reinforcement, yet placed where the team expects him to control tempo.

In any ranked game, there is a difference between a good player and one who can carry: the first wins his lane, the second turns his lane into everyone's lane. Gilberto Mora has been placed in the second role. That is a bet on a person, not on a system.

One small but important detail: the report says Chávez's spot is being contested by Fidalgo. The door is not closed. In a team whose XI is not settled, that says a lot about Márquez's character. He does not hand out starting places as honorary awards. He wants them earned through a competition that is still running, and he is willing to let that competition stretch across a friendly.

The front line is where it gets interesting. Alvarado, Alexis González, Lozano — a trio the report itself describes as the part drawing the most attention. A new coach has two ways into a debut: park the bus and hope for a safe result, or put three attackers on the pitch and declare intent. Márquez chooses the second, and that is a statement that needs no microphone. He does not say his team will attack; he simply places three players capable of creating a swing into the XI and lets the sheet speak.

And the name at the top of the list is Lozano, returning after a long absence from the national team. I have watched his touches many times, and what I remember is not the speed but how he chooses the moment to accelerate. A great winger is like a late-game marksman: for the whole match he only moves, takes position, and then in one instant every gap the opponent left over the previous twenty minutes collapses into a single touch.

Looking at the back four, I see an interesting blend. Gallardo and D. García are names accustomed to pressure. Johan Vásquez has played in Europe. Reyes is the less experienced piece. This is the kind of defence you only truly judge when you watch them run together against an opponent that genuinely knows how to attack. In training, every defence looks good — that is the nature of training.

Placed on a comparison axis with Colombia, the picture is fairly clear. Colombia play structured possession, their midfield is dense, and they have a habit of turning fifty-fifty duels into advantage. Mexico, with a single pivot and a teenage midfielder beside him, are betting on escaping the press through technique rather than physique. That is a beautiful idea on paper. It only becomes correct if the midfield holds the ball.

In other words: this XI has logic, but that logic still lives at the blueprint stage. Not a single square metre has been built yet.

An era does not begin with a friendly

I have to say this, even if it dims the glamour of the story.

This is a friendly. No league points change because of it. And more than that, the XI we are dissecting was recorded from a training session — not an officially confirmed lineup. The report itself says the XI is "beginning to be defined" while simultaneously asserting it "points to being the one that starts." Those two sentences do not fully agree, and that disagreement is the point worth noting: any conclusion about Márquez's identity right now is built on sand.

I have made this kind of mistake. In 2026, commentating live on Portugal against Spain, I screamed an inspired line about Nacho's strike and called him by the wrong name three times. That mistake taught me something simple: inspiration must come with a footnote. And the footnote here is that in the available material there is no expected-goals figure, no pressing metric, no possession data. All we have are training positions and a list of names.

Based on my experience tracking matches, a lineup observed in training carries more credibility than a transfer rumour but less than an official team sheet. It tells you intent, not outcome. And in football, intent is the cheapest thing in August and the most expensive thing in May.

Second: there is a tendency to turn a "new era" into a media product. A new coach, a star returning after years away, a match staged on American soil — that is a perfect content package. I am not saying it is wrong. I am saying it creates expectations above the true value of a friendly, and expectations of that kind tend to bite back quickly. Disclosing two injuries before the match, however medically sensible, also quietly lowers the bar for the Baltimore result.

Third, and this is the most concerning technical point: a midfield of Lira, Chávez and Mora is a young midfield against a physical, structured South American opponent. If Colombia push high and attack the space either side of Lira, the game can become a physical test Mexico may not pass. A teenage midfielder in the XI is not always a romantic statement about the future. Sometimes it is simply the consequence of a thin pool.

Finally, Lozano's return carries two things at once: sporting value and commercial value. I am always suspicious of recall stories packaged too beautifully, because they usually tell the storyteller's story more than the team's. But I also believe something else: sometimes a team in transition needs someone who has been there, not to score, but so that young players see a man walk into the dressing room with the bearing of someone who has nothing left to prove.

There is another layer worth mentioning, even though it sits off the pitch. Staging a Mexico–Colombia friendly on US soil is not just scheduling. It is a deliberate commercial move aimed at El Tri's largest audience outside its own territory. Team brand, broadcast revenue, merchandise — all of it follows a match like this. Lozano's return resonates with that context. A shirt sold in California is worth far more than a starting berth in an October friendly.

But here is where I want to keep my caution. Things packaged to sell rarely outlive their own packaging. If Mexico play well in Baltimore, the story writes itself. If not, there will be a silence, and in that silence people start counting everything again — Lozano's minutes, Mora's touches, the number of times Lira was beaten.

I have seen an empty summer turn out to be the trophy that lit the whole year. In 2026, when stadiums had no crowds, an esports tournament between real players kept me talking about football. I learned that the value of a moment does not lie in whether it enters the history books, but in whether it forces people to look again. A friendly in Baltimore may be a small footnote in Márquez's coaching career. For an eighteen-year-old midfielder who has never played beside grown men, it may be an entire chapter.

Takeaway

I am 48 this year. I have covered eight Olympic Games, eight World Cups, and enough friendlies to know they usually prove nothing. I am 48 this year, and age cannot stop the ping — I still reopen that training clip, still count every position, still feel as curious as someone watching their first match. Perhaps because I believe that three stumbles, one burst of acceleration, and a lifetime of telling stories is how an era truly begins — not with a press release.

The question I leave for myself, and for anyone who will sit in front of a screen in Baltimore: if Mexico lose to Colombia, will we call it the first lesson of an era, or the first sign of a mistake? Players transfer clubs; I transfer my way of seeing — but I keep the old heart.