Everything must come to an end eventually. However, Mexico's 22-game unbeaten streak came to a painful halt on Saturday. Chile demolished El Tri 7-0 in their quarterfinal matchup at the Copa America Centenario at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
It was the worst performance by Mexico in a long time. However, the biggest issue of this performance was the lack of heart they showed in the game. After La Roja scored their third goal of the match the Mexicans' energy completely dropped. Instead of sprinting to a ball they were jogging. As a result, the defending Gold Cup champions suffered their worst competitive defeat on Saturday.
Before this defeat, the Mexicans' worst loss in a tournament was against West Germany in the 1978 World Cup, when they were defeated 6-0 in the group stage. Now without any more delay let's review Mexico's players' performances in their humbling 7-0 defeat.
Player Ratings
GK Guillermo Ochoa (6)
Yes, he was scored on seven times in this match, but he did his best and left the game with four saves. Towards the end of the match, it seemed like he was the only player still fighting.
The defense was overwhelmed
Paul Aguilar (2)
On the defensive end, he was attempting to stop Chile but it did not work. On the offensive end, he did nothing that impacted the game.
Néstor Araújo (2)
He and Héctor Moreno seemed to be 10 seconds behind every play. Chile's clinical passing in the final third made the pair look foolish for the majority of the match.
Héctor Moreno (3)
Araújo and he will be having nightmares of Arturo Vidal, Alexis Sánchez, Eduardo Vargas and Edson Puch for a while.
Miguel Layún (1)
Offensively he was ineffective and defensively he struggled to just keep up with Chile. However, the reason why he ends up with a one is because in the sixth goal he made it clear that he gave up. Twice in the build-up to the goal, he had opportunities to clear the ball out of the box. Instead, he walked to the ball and Vargas came from nowhere and blasted in the sixth goal for La Roja.
The offense was nowhere to be found
Jesús Dueñas (2)
He and the rest of the midfield were doing their best to just slow down La Roja. As a result, a basic like completing two to three passes was a grind for him and the rest of El Tri.
Andrés Guardado (2)
The captain had his worst performance for his nation in his 129 caps. If it was not for his yellow card in the 59th-minute one would of forget that he was even on the field.
Hirving Lozano (2)
The 20-year-old attacker will become one of Mexico's most talented players one day. However, Lozano will do his best to put this game out of his memory as soon as possible.
Héctor Herrera (2)
The 26-year-old is usually a lethal force in the attack. Today he spent most of the 90 minutes helping on the defensive end and that's about it.
Jesús Manuel Corona (2)
The exciting 23-year-old attacker had a dull 60-minute shift on Saturday. He never once made La Roja's defense get nervous the few times he touched the ball.
Frontline thoroughly ineffective
Javier Hernández (2)
Since the midfield was not able to connect passes, Chicharito became another defender for most of the match. The one time he was able to get off a shot, his opportunity safely flew out of bounds for a Chile goal kick.
Substitutes made no impact
Raúl Jiménez (2)
The Benfica player came in to bring some life to the offense at halftime. Instead, he witnessed Chile drop five goals in the second half alone.
Carlos Peña (2)
The 26-year-old was brought on for Dueñas to bring some stability to the midfield. However, he was not able to win the ball back that many times and spent nearly his entire shift chasing the shadows of the Chileans.
Diego Reyes (2)
Honestly, I am not sure why the six-foot-two-inches center back was brought in the game for Corona when El Tri was losing 5-0. Clearly his presences did not stop La Roja's offense as they scored two more goals while he was playing.
Shocking defeat will put Juan Carlos Osorio in trouble
Juan Carlos Osorio (1)
Even before the match he was making all the wrong moves. Reports were coming out that the 55-year-old coach was essentially confident that his squad would beat Chile in regulation time. So the Colombian did not feel it was necessary to practice penalties leading up to this game.
That false confidence will always create problems down the line. Instead of making his players practice on every aspect that can to potentially win them the match, he just kept feeding the ego of El Tri.
Then during the game, he made decisions that were questionable. The biggest head scratcher was replacing his most creative player on the pitch for a center back when they are getting beat down. Was he expecting Reyes to score five goals or set them up?
Reyes, in his entire professional career up to now, has only scored five times in 157 games played. That includes clubs, youth national teams, and the senior national team, so again why Osorio thought that Reyes was going to help turn around the game is a question for the ages. Especially when he has internationally tested players on the bench like Javier Aquino and Oribe Peralta ready to go.
However, the former New York Red Bulls manager made his decisions already and now El Tri has been eliminated from the tournament.