With the Mexican National Team, Andres Guardado has cemented himself as the captain and leader, Javier 'Chicharito' Hernandez continues to be the poster boy, and Rafael Marquez is in the living legend stratosphere. Yet the breakout star of late for El Tri has been 22 year-old Jesus “Tecatito” Corona.

Tecatito's been quite the revelation

Corona played lights out club soccer in Holland and made a splash move to Porto following his noticeable success. For Porto, a club that’s been known for producing talent, it looks like they’ve snagged their next gem.

And for Mexico, Tecatito did double duty last summer, playing in both Copa America 2015 and the CONCACAF Gold Cup. In Chile for the Copa America, he was the best thing that Mexico produced on the field with their abysmal "B squad".

In the Gold Cup, Corona was Mexico spark off the bench that uplifted El Tri time after time. He emerged from the tournament with the Bright Future Award, given to the best young player to compete.

Corona topped off his year with Mexico by scoring the game-winning goal against Honduras to help break Mexico's 50-year losing streak in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa. It wasn’t just the meaning of the goal, but the manner in which he scored that showed how unique a talent he is compared to other young Mexican players. As the ball was played out, Corona took a touch with the outside of his left foot and one-timed the ball with his right before the ball ever reached the ground, smacking it into the lower left corner of the net while dashing across the top of the box.

As the summer of 2016 rolls around, El Tri’s 2016 is just as busy with the Copa America Centenario set to take place in June 2016 as they are with traveling to Rio for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in an effort to defend the gold medal they earned back in the summer of 2012. While the Rio Games are a U-23 tournament, aside from hosts Brazil, no other team looks to be putting as much importance in these games as Mexico has, which leads to the question of where Corona should play this upcoming summer.

A Copa America chance for the ages

With the Copa America having a special centennial importance this summer, it gives Mexico a great chance to make a good run and really prove themselves against South America’s best. A semifinal run should be the goal with games being played in the United States, as Mexico will have an incredible home-field advantage, being a neighboring country of the USA.

As most teams will be taking their best or close to best teams, El Tri should do the same. Mexico took a U23 team to the 2011 Copa America (by rules) and in 2015, they brought a makeshift team of backups by choice. They have no excuse not to take their best this summer and measure themselves up against the rest of the nations that make up CONCACAF and CONMEBOL.

There aren’t many better players than Corona for Mexico to choose from right now. With El Tri manager Juan Carlos Osorio’s style of changing formations depending on who features in his squad, Corona will play in important part whether it’s as a winger, a wide forward, or in the middle as an attacking midfielder. Whether he is a starter or comes off the bench would probably also be in limbo, but as we’ve seen, Tecatito has the ability to play a variety of roles and will no doubt be a focal point for El Tri to have success in the USA this summer.

Gold in sight for El Tri at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games

Mexico has a golden opportunity this summer to defend their Olympic gold. Unlike most tournaments, the Olympic Games only allows roster spots for 18 players. While each nation is allowed three players above age 23, the rest of the 15 must be U-23 eligible. Because of this, Corona would qualify as one of the 15 underage players, making his participation in the tournament especially important because of the value he brings as one of the best players El Tri can use without taking up an over-age slot.

The advantage of the Olympics is that Corona would be the main attacking threat (or one of them) on the selected team. Especially if the forwards consist of Marco Bueno and Erick Torres, neither of whom have shown consistent form leading up to this summer. The drawback is that the tournament takes place in early August, and so Tecatito would be forced to miss the beginning of the season with Porto if he participated.

Unlike last year, it’s unlikely to see Porto allowing Corona to play in both tournaments. It would be great to see Corona have a chance to play in Copa America Centenario; however, with the importance Mexico is placing on the Olympics, it’s likely we’ll see him in Rio come summertime.

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About the author
Ivan Sanchez-Carrasco
Based out of Portland, Oregon, A first generation Mexican-American who writes about the Mexican National team, as well as opinion pieces on other soccer topics. Also check out my other writing as well. http://futbolpulse.com/author/ivan-sanchez/