Mexican Football Federation president Justino Compean confirmed Tuesday that Sven-Goran Eriksson is very close to taking over as the new national team coach. Speaking from Sydney, where he has been attending FIFA’s annual congress, Compean claimed the Manchester City boss is about to accept the offer from Mexico.
“We only seriously considered (Luiz Felipe) Scolari and Eriksson,” Compean told Estadio W. “We’ve sorted out the details with Eriksson, and we are about to confirm him. “We are expecting to reveal (the new coach’s name) on June 2, so he can be formally unveiled (the following day). It’s about to be completed, but as long as we don’t have anything signed, we cannot reveal anything.”
Compean did acknowledge, however, that the federation’s directors were now unanimous in their choice to succeed Hugo Sanchez.“We have already talked to the directors and convinced the ones who initially disagreed,” Compean said. “Here we take unanimous decisions, and the name will be accepted by everyone.”
This is a good move by Mexico as Eriksson is one of the better national coaches around. Mexico will have no problems qualifying for the world cup, but with this move, Mexico might well have wrested the best in CONCAF mantle from the U.S.
Mexico will open up its World Cup Qualifying campaign against Belize in Houston on June 15th.