Despite needing the help of the United States to qualify for the World Cup after an embarrassingly poor qualifying campaign, Mexico Manager Miguel Herrera feels El Tri can win the World Cup. Herrera was one of four managers to take charge of  Mexico during qualifying campaign ultimately guiding Mexico to Brazil after winning a two-leg intercontinental playoff against Oceania Champions New Zealand.

Nonetheless Herrera feels Mexico can ultimately win the World Cup.

“I believe that we have a team that could be world champions,” said Herrera. “We just have to convince them of that.”

“There are some Mexico fans that sell their houses, cars to be at the World Cup. We’re going to give absolutely everything.

“We’re ready to go out to try and win the game, it is a really important match, key to our hopes of getting out of the group. We know that nothing is easy but we are going to work hard and do what we can.”

Herrera has made two controversial decisions entering El Tri’s opening Group A match against Cameroon. He has dropped Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez and has opted to start controversial goalkeeper Guillermo “Memo” Ochoa whose Ajaccio club was just relegated from Ligue Un. The omission of Hernandez is even more surprising considering that Carlos Vela, arguably the best Mexican born player playing his trade professionally in Europe has refused to join the National Team for two years now and opted to skip the World Cup.

Mexico will be playing a 3-5-2 formation against Cameroon potentially giving the speedy and athletic Indomitable Lions an opportunity to exploit the wide areas of the pitch. Despite his age 33 year-old Samuel Eto’o has a pedigree that could exploit Mexico’s formation. El Tri will then have to contend with Croatia and Brazil to get out of Group A. Mexico can go into both matches with a certain degree of confidence based on history. The host Brazilians have a poor record in recent competitive matches against Mexico, while El Tri defeated Croatia in the 2002 World Cup during group play.