The history of Mexican football reached a turning point on 2 October 2005, a day that defined a generation, a day that will live long in the memory of those that had the good fortune to experience it, a day on which they will never forget where they were.
It was ten years ago today that Mexico’s so-called Generación Dorada beat Brazil 3-0 to win the FIFA U-17 World Cup Peru 2005, a stunning triumph achieved by the likes of Carlos Vela, Giovani dos Santos, Hector Moreno and Efrain Juarez and celebrated by the whole country, which reserved a place for their young heroes in the collective imagination.
"I still remember it as if it were yesterday,” Juarez told FIFA.com with a mixture of joy and nostalgia. Reflecting on the six matches that took that Tri side to the world title, the right-back said: “I’ve had a lot of good times in football. I’ve won titles in many places and I’ve played in the World Cup and for foreign clubs, but that was the most wonderful experience of my life.”
It is perhaps hard to explain to anyone outside Mexico the impact that their achievement in becoming U-17 world champions had on the country. Thousands upon thousands of people flooded the streets of Mexico City to give the warmest of homecomings to the victorious squad, who paraded through the streets of the capital in an open-top bus for a whole day, marking the start of a new era for Mexican football.
As Juarez recalled, the Peru 2005 win was also a watershed in their careers of the players themselves: “Barcelona came in and signed me. I couldn’t play because I wasn’t a European Union national, but I did get to spend a couple of years in Spain, which helped me mature,” said the former Celtic and Real Zaragoza player.
“After that I returned to Mexico, won the league title with Pumas almost straightaway, played at South Africa 2010 and then returned to Europe. They’re all things that I’m sure wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t won that tournament in Peru.”
One big, happy family It was a competition won in style, the Mexicans brushing the Netherlands aside 4-0 in the semi-finals before putting the Brazilians to the sword in the final. Aside from the obvious quality of the team, however, Juarez revealed another secret to their success: “We were real dreamers. It might sound strange, but there wasn’t a day that went by without us imagining what it would be like to lift the cup.
“In sharing that same dream we became a family. We spent so many months together that we got to know each other inside out. We were like brothers, and our desire and belief was bulletproof. We dreamed about success but we also worked hard to achieve it.”
The success Juarez and Co enjoyed in Peru did not come about by chance. As part of their painstaking preparations, he and his team-mates made many a sacrifice in their quest to become world champions.
“We spent our birthdays, Christmas and Mothers’ Day in team training camps and did an exhausting amount of physical work,” revealed the Monterrey defender. “But the team grew in stature along the way. Our coach, Jesus 'Chucho' Ramirez, was almost a father figure to us as well. We didn’t have our families close by and whenever we had a problem we turned to him a lot of the time. He was the only one who could give us the support we needed.”
That team went on to change the face of Mexican football, blazing a trail for the country’s youth sides, who continue to be a force on the world stage. “It would be arrogant of me to say that what we did was a turning point, though that’s what the results since then suggest. We’ve won Olympic gold, a second U-17 world title and reached the semis of the U-20 World Cup. I think the youngsters who’ve followed in our footsteps have had that same contagious belief in themselves.”
Mexico’s success at youth level begs an obvious question, however: why has the senior national team not been able to make the big step forward? The winner of 39 caps for his country, four of them coming at South Africa 2010, Juarez has a theory on that and a prediction too.
“We’ve had a bit of bad luck,” he explained. “We’ve just needed to take that little step, but circumstances have always conspired against us. There were the penalties in 1994, the Maxi Rodriguez goal in 2006, and Argentina’s opening goal in 2010, though my feeling is that Russia 2018 is going to be Mexico’s tournament. We’ll have three great generations coming together: the two U-17 world title-winning teams and the Olympic champions. So be warned: watch out for El Tri!”
Whatever the future may hold, today is about celebrating ten years of glory for Mexican football, something Juarez will be doing with his former team-mates thanks to modern technology: “We keep in contact a lot and we even have a phone group with all the players and the coaching staff. We don’t see each other that much because we play for different teams, but we chat nearly every day.”
Though they might be virtual in nature, the team’s celebrations will be enthusiastic all the same, as Juarez confirmed in revealing the name of their ultra-exclusive chat group: “Campeones del Mundo! What else would we call it?”