Mexico and Croatia will have a friendly
encounter on 28th May in Los Angeles. This match will serve as a
preparation for Mexico, as they will have two CONCACAF qualifying
matches in early June before the FIFA Confederations Cup. This key encounter will be a stress test for the squad managed by Juan
Carlos Osorio and that’s why he had called a 32-man squad for the
forthcoming matches. The most important players will all be playing:
Javier Hernández, Andrés Guardado, Giovani dos Santos and his
brother Jonathan, and the goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa. Osorio also
called the veteran defender Rafa Márquez. With 38 years, the former
Barcelona player is still displaying a high performance in the
national league playing in Atlas.
Croatia have all their main players in
club duties or other commitments. As such we won’t see players
like Luka Modrić, Mateo Kovačić and Mario Mandžukić. Instead,
Ante Čačić, the manager, called a team mostly composed by local
players, with some players abroad such as the defender Tin Jedvaj
(21, Bayern Leverkusen), the forwards Ivan Santini (28, SM Caen) and
Duje Čop (27, Cagliari Calcio) and goalkeeper Lovre Kalinić
(27, KAA Gent).
With Mexico needing this match to
tune-up their performance and with a better squad overall, a “home”
win seems likely. The odds reflect this, with 1/4 as average. A match
with more than 2 goals from Mexico is an average of 17/10. This
shouldn't be too much of an ask due to the friendly nature of the match and
the offensive style of the mexicans. One should expect an open
encounter with lots of chances and goals.
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