familiar

MEXICO CITY — After what may have been the most important game in the Mexican national team’s World Cup history, coach Javier Aguirre hugged each of his 26 players.

The embraces weren’t to celebrate a victory. They were hugs of gratitude, encouragement and, above all, resignation.

Minutes earlier, the players paraded around Azteca Stadium — traditionally an impenetrable fortress — to applaud El Tri fans with tears in their eyes. Mexico had just lost 3-2 to England, extinguishing the hope that it could parlay its World Cup co-host role into the deepest tournament run in the country’s history.

The goal was to advance to the quarterfinals for the first time since 1986 and, above all, to show the world that Mexican soccer finally had taken the leap that had been demanded for so long — defeating a past world champion, England, that hadn’t looked particularly dominant. But reality, once again, hit hard as the loss became Mexico’s eighth defeat in the round of 16 since 1994.

This time, Mexico had the support of its fans, playing on home soil. And it wasn’t enough.

“I’m satisfied with the work we’ve done, but when you lose — and I’ve lost a lot in my career — you never quite get over it,” Aguirre said. “It’s very painful because dreaming gives us hope; losing this way hurts a lot.”

Mexico fans show their support before their team faced England in a Round of 16 World Cup match at Azteca Stadium on July 5.

(Richard Pelham / Getty Images)

After weeks of celebrations following wins over South Africa, South Korea, Czechia and Ecuador, Mexico failed the test against England, ranked fourth in the world. El Tri dominated possession but could not convert it into goals, while the English were clinical, led by Jude Bellingham, Harry Kane, Anthony Gordon, Bukayo Saka and goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.

For Aguirre, the loss reopened a familiar wound. In the 2002, Mexico lost 2-0 to a U.S. squad led by Landon Donovan in what many consider the most painful defeat in the country’s World Cup history. This defeat to England very well could rival it.

“I would have liked to win five games, to leave home with five victories. That hurts — it hurts a lot,” Aguirre said. “A loss is a loss. Our opponent didn’t make the same mistakes we did.”

Judging Aguirre solely on the end of this World Cup run would be simplistic given what he inherited. Two years ago, he was asked to lead the struggling team for the third time. When he arrived, Mexico was ranked 17th in the world and had not won the Nations League. He leaves with Mexico ranked in the top 10 and as Nations League champion and two-time defending Gold Cup champion.

This World Cup wasn’t the disaster that Qatar was four years ago, when Mexico was eliminated in the group stage. This summer, Mexico secured its first knockout-round victory since 1986, advanced to a fifth World Cup match for the second time and swept three games during the group stage without conceding a goal — something no other Mexican team achieved.

In 22 months at the helm — having taken over in 2024 following Jaime Lozano’s failure at the Copa América, where Mexico failed to advance past the group stage — Aguirre achieved something that went beyond the scoreboard by uniting players previously accused of having too much ego and preferring not to sacrifice to help the team.

At this World Cup, that squad gave its all — body and soul — and rebuilt a relationship with the fans that had seemed broken since the 2024 Copa América. Thousands of fans filled the Ángel de la Independencia, the Zócalo and other squares across the country, as well as watch parties in cities like Los Angeles.

“We managed to restore the pride of being part of the national team — for the national anthem and for its people. It’s a privilege to be here, and they know it,” Aguirre said of his players. “I think we’ve returned to a Mexican identity.”

Green jerseys were seen all over Mexico as people set aside their differences to cheer on El Tri.

“Mexico was the best host of the three. It had the best atmosphere — it’s a country that truly loves soccer,” Mexico City native Santiago Mondragón said before the England match.

Mexico had standout and inspired performances from Erik Lira, Gilberto Mora and Roberto Alvarado, but its lineup struggled to keep pace with English players trained at elite European clubs.

Mora, just 17 years old and with tremendous potential, made a mistake on the play leading to England’s second goal. Alvarado, who provided strong passes to Raúl Jiménez and was solid in defense throughout the tournament, lost track of Bellingham on the first goal. Raúl Rangel, who was outstanding against South Korea and who three years ago was playing for Tapatío in the Mexican expansion league, stepped too far forward on the penalty kick that sealed the match, minutes after an English player was sent off in the second half. Edson Álvarez, who did not have a good season with Turkey’s Fenerbahce because of an injury, received little playing time and made a serious mistake marking Kane, which led to Gordon’s breakaway on the play that resulted in the penalty kick.

Mexico’s Raúl Jiménez gets tangled with England’s Ezri Konsa while going for the ball during a World Cup Round of 16 match at Azteca Stadium on July 5.

(Francois Nel / Getty Images)

Following the loss, many in Mexico still are wondering why, despite having a one-man advantage for 36 minutes —plus 11 minutes of stoppage time — the team was unable to tie England. Aguirre replaced Mora and goal-scorer Julián Quiñones, bringing on an attacking lineup that focused on sending in crosses, which the English defense easily cleared.

While it’s possible a few changes could have shifted the match in Mexico’s favor, there were limits to how much the technical staff could get out of the roster.

El Tri lacks sufficient depth to assemble a truly competitive 26-man roster, as players such as Álvarez and Santiago Giménez didn’t arrive at their best form, and players such as Brian Gutiérrez weren’t ready for the pressure of a tournament of this magnitude, in need of more time to develop.

Mexico lacked game-changing players capable of breaking down tight defenses — the role Hirving Lozano played in 2018 or Giovani Dos Santos in 2014. The lack of creativity that showed against Saudi Arabia in 2022 flared up late against England.

Thanks to Jiménez and Quiñones, the team did show firepower, scoring 10 goals in five matches, but it lacked depth to break down a well-organized English defense.

The talent pool has been hindered by the Mexico club system.

Mexico’s Julián Quiñones is tossed in the air by teammates as they celebrate a Round of 32 World Cup win over Ecuador at Azteca Stadium on June 30.

(Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)

Liga MX owners maintain a narrow view of domestic soccer, prioritizing foreign signings over the development of local players and promotion and relegation remain abolished — removing competitive pressure that is the backbone of English leagues.

Top Mexican players continue to be overvalued by their home clubs, which makes it difficult for European clubs to sign them when there are cheaper options with more impressive résumés.

“This was the opportunity; that’s why it’s frustrating, that’s why it’s sad,” Mexican journalist Javier Alarcón said of El Tri’s World Cup exit. “With the Mexican federation and its owners, there isn’t much hope.”

Rafael Márquez, a former FC Barcelona star and one of the greatest players in Mexican national team history, is succeeding Aguirre after serving as one of his assistant coaches. Márquez has formed a close bond with players, who tossed the 47-year-old former defender in the air after one of their World Cup wins, and is familiar with all the reasons Mexico continues to hit the same World Cup wall.

“Rafa is a great guy, a great coach,” said Aguirre, who noted that the team’s average age has dropped and that more and more players are playing in Europe. “Hopefully he can do better than we were able to.”

BEIJING — The Trump administration has repeatedly framed the war in Iran as a quick, winnable fight, vowing to defeat the Islamic Republic “totally and decisively” — incomparable to the “dumb” wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But from China’s perspective, the parallels are clear.

“You can blow everything up — destroy it all,” one Chinese official told The Times, describing the Americans, “but you don’t have a strategy.”

President Trump arrives in Beijing this week for talks with a Chinese government that is confident as ever in its ascendance on the world stage, taking stock of its leverage and still baffled the U.S. administration chose yet another costly war in the Middle East.

China has watched as the United States, over seven weeks of fighting an outmatched enemy, has depleted nearly half of its stockpiles of high-end munitions — including its THAAD and Patriot batteries — and fired its Army chief of staff, among other Pentagon leaders, who had warned of critical shortages.

Marco Rubio, Trump’s national security advisor and secretary of State, has said the military operation that started the war known as Operation Epic Fury “is over.”

But the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most vital commercial waterways, remains effectively shuttered. Iranian attacks in the region continue. And talks between Washington and Tehran have failed to reach a diplomatic agreement to bring a definitive end to the conflict.

“The Chinese have high regard for the operational proficiency of U.S. forces, but they recognize that, thus far at least, the Trump administration has not achieved its core objectives in going to war with Iran,” said David Ochmanek, a former deputy assistant secretary of Defense now with the Rand Corp.

The war has given Beijing an opportunity, Ochmanek said, “to double down on the claim they have made for the past year and a half that the [People’s Republic of China], not the U.S., is a force for global stability.”

The war has allowed China to demonstrate some diplomatic prowess. An initial ceasefire reached between the United States and Iran last month was only clinched after Beijing pressured Tehran to agree. And China’s advocacy for an open strait — rejecting Iranian attempts to impose a toll system — while opposing the U.S. war itself has allowed Beijing to maintain leverage with both sides.

It has also inflicted costs. Allies of Beijing noticed when the government did not leap to the defense of Tehran at the start of the war. And China has its own vested interest in a free and open waterway, where nearly 50% of the country’s crude oil imports pass through each day.

Building up to the start of the war and throughout its initial weeks, Washington diverted significant military assets from Asia — where Trump’s own national security strategy says they are needed most — to the Middle East.

The USS Abraham Lincoln was redirected from the South China Sea, along with scores of advanced missile interceptors from South Korea and Japan and nearly the entire U.S. inventory of long-range air-to-surface missiles in the Pacific.

Policy experts at the Pentagon were brought in to discuss a potential invasion of Kharg Island, the jewel of Iran’s oil industry, to draw lessons from planning a defense of Taiwan, according to a Defense official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. A Marine expeditionary unit was sent from Okinawa to the region for the potential operation.

Chinese officials and analysts have been candid in their assessments of U.S. hard power, impressed by a military they acknowledge remains the best in the world.

But Beijing sees a persistent flaw in U.S. strategy: the belief that military strength alone can reshape political realities, a view further weakened by the pressures on a democratic government whose public grows impatient with wars that drag on beyond days or weeks.

China’s autocracy is free from accountability to the public — and anyway has confidence that Chinese public opinion would be on its side if it were to launch a major military operation against its main target, Taiwan.

But there are lessons of caution to be learned from the Americans, as well.

Over the last year, the Taiwanese Navy has been practicing the rapid deployment of cheap and domestically produced smart mines for the sea — a potential bulwark against enemy blockades of ports and hostile invasion forces.

It is the type of asymmetric warfare that has so far frustrated the U.S. military in the Strait of Hormuz, protracting a war that Trump vowed would last a month or less.

Taiwan, too, would confront Beijing with political realities that military force cannot erase. Nearly 90% of the Taiwanese people oppose a Chinese takeover, and about 60% say they would resist it at all costs.

“Chinese analysts see two things at once,” said Craig Singleton, senior director of the China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “They are impressed by U.S. military reach, precision and operational capability, but they also see a familiar pattern of American power struggling to translate battlefield success into a durable political outcome.”

That matters for Taiwan, Singleton said, “because China’s own military modernization has borrowed heavily from the American model, relying heavily on joint operations, high-tech precision strikes, decapitation concepts and information dominance.

“If the world’s most experienced military can still struggle to convert military pressure into political success,” he added, “Beijing has to ask whether the [People’s Liberation Army] could do better in a far more complex Taiwan scenario.”

Those words showed maturity but also the teenager’s high standards.

Corteen-Coleman perched herself next to England’s coaches on the balcony for much of her side’s chase. She believed her work for the day was done, but her most consequential moment was still to come.

Ten runs were still needed when she emerged as the last batter to join Dean.

Crucially, she helped Dean run twos and, with solid defence, bettered her previous high score of one not out in The Hundred to finish unbeaten on three and sealed the win.

“I am glad I looked calm because I definitely wasn’t,” she said.

“The main point for me was to keep it really simple.”

Corteen-Coleman did not, of course, complete the win alone.

Central was the role of Dean, who admitted to exposing her team-mate more than she intended by taking singles early in the over, but otherwise played the situation well.

Much has been made of Dean’s ability to hold her mettle in chases. There has been some success but failure too – notably in the Mankad ODI at Lord’s in 2022 and the second ODI of the Women’s Ashes last year.

This time, standing in as England captain for the first time, Dean dragged her side over the line.

If England’s training camp with the army last week was supposed to develop leaders, this was Dean’s Passing-Out Parade.

“I have worked on having that calmness and being ready in any situation but that mainly came from Deano,” added Corteen-Coleman.

“If I came out and she was panicking I would have been under the pump.”

Corteen-Coleman emerged with the words of coach Charlotte Edwards in her ears. She told her to back her strengths and keep a clear mind.

That was backed up by Dean in the middle.

“She came out with good clarity,” said Dean.

“I said, ‘Yorkers have been successful for them so they will probably look to get under your bat’.

“We decided getting forward was the best option.

“Tilly is really proactive with her thinking. She has a good cricket brain.”