I'll go in favor of the home team here, despite things not being too sweet in their ranks. Ever since the World Cup, they haven't managed to find a solid replacement to Javier Aguirre, and after a short spell with Enrique Meza (who drew with Spain 1-1), now the position of interim coach is held by Efrain Flores, but only for a short period of time. Moreover, there are even some players that are making problems, with dos Santos who refused the call-up against Spain, and now Guillermo Franco has decided to hang his boots. As if that wasn't enough, the artificial turf of the Estadio Omnilife is not on the players' taste, and many have criticized it. However, Mexico does hold a pretty important advantage: most of their stars are available for this match, and a lot of them are expected to start tonight's game (early reports give in the starting line-up players like Ochoa, Salcido - Fulham, Barrera - West Ham, Rafa Marquez, Gerardo Torrado, dos Santos - Tottenham, Vela - Arsenal, and Hernandez - ManU), players with a lot of skill, quality and experience.
Ecuador came to Mexico with a young and very inexperienced team, where we can see only a few players that have played for the National team more than 5 times: Walter Ayovi from Monterrey, David Quiroz from Emelec, Antonio Valencia from Manchester United, Christian Benitez from Santos Laguna and Jefferson Montero from Villareal. So, out of the 18 players called for this match, only 6 of them are playing abroad, and only 3 of those 6 play in Europe. So here we have an obvious quality gap between the players of these two teams. And the artificial turf of the Estadio Omnilife should be an even bigger problem for the Ecuadorian players, as they don't have anything similar in their country, while the more professional Mexican players can adapt easier. Very low stakes here, because after all, it is a meaningless friendly. GL!
Mexico (-0.1 AH) @ 2.07, 3/10
Result: 1-2, LOST
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