Coaching Mexico isn’t easy

Who: Cuba vs. Panama, 3:30 p.m.; Mexico vs. Trinidad and Tobago, 6:30 p.m.

Traffic: Plan ahead and take MARTA if you can. There's road construction in downtown Atlanta as well as a rally occurring downtown Saturday.

If you think Falcons coach Mike Smith is under some pressure, consider what Jose Manuel de la Torre must be feeling. Compress the pressure of coaching the Cowboys, Yankees and Lakers into one job, and that’s what de la Torre deals with daily.

De la Torre, known as “Chepo,” is the coach of Mexico’s national soccer team, which will play Trinidad and Tobago in the second of two quarterfinal games in the Gold Cup on Saturday at the Georgia Dome. Panama will play Cuba in the first game, at 3:30 p.m.

De la Torre was hired in 2010 in the Raiders-esque revolving door that comes with leading the green, white and red. When the team plays poorly the entire nation, unlike only the Falcons Nation that Smith hears from, rises up. Those fans have been quite vociferous in the past six months as “El Tri” comes to the Dome with only four wins in 15 matches this year. Oh, and the World Cup is next year, and Mexico hasn’t guaranteed itself a spot in Brazil.

“Ole!” has been replaced by “Oh no!”

“In Mexico, there are Catholics, Jewish, all types of politics, but soccer is the majority,” de la Torre said Friday. “The responsibility is very large. Part of that falls on us to give satisfaction to those in Mexico and the U.S. who want to be well represented by their country.”

What other country can sell more than 63,000 tickets for a midweek game in Charlotte, N.C., against Iceland, as Mexico did three years ago? What other country can sell more than 50,000 tickets for a midweek game against Bosnia and Herzegovina, as Mexico did two years ago at the Georgia Dome? More than 50,000 people are expected to attend Saturday’s Gold Cup quarterfinal.

So yes, there are expectations.

Legendary Mexican TV journalist Fernando Schwartz said coaching the Mexican team comes with more pressure than does coaching any other nation’s team. The pressure comes from many channels: the team’s sponsors, which he said are the most important in all of soccer, the legions of fans who sell out most games and want not just results but good results, from himself and the calendar because Mexico plays all the time, which keeps the spotlight on.

“People say ‘Fire Chepo,’ ‘Take out Chepo,’” Schwartz said. “It’s very difficult all the parts that surround the national team.”

This year has been particularly cruel.

The team tied its first six games before squeaking by Jamaica 1-0 in a World Cup qualifying match. However, that momentum dissipated with ties to Panama and Costa Rica in its next two qualifying matches. Mexico is third in the CONCACAF region qualifying table (standings), which would put them through to next year’s World Cup in Brazil if that form holds. However, they are just one point ahead of the fourth-place spot, which would force them into a play-in game to make it to Brazil, and two points ahead of the fifth-place team with four qualifying games remaining. Mexico hasn’t missed making a World Cup since 1990.

“It is really hard and really difficult because people have high expectations for us,” defender Miguel Layun said. “We know that we have to work harder and do a better game. We know the responsibility that we have in this tournament. We have been working really hard to win this Cup. I think we are doing well, not as well as we want, but we are getting better.”

The Gold Cup didn’t start well with a surprising 2-1 loss to Panama, which turned up the pressure on de la Torre and ignited speculation that he could be fired if the team doesn’t win the Gold Cup.

However, the team bounced back to knock off minnows Canada (2-0) and Martinique (3-1). However, even the victories weren’t deemed good because the team didn’t play particularly well in either match.

“In the NFL, if you win, it doesn’t matter how,” Fox Soccer analyst Eric Wynalda said. “You hit the reset button and go to the next game. The unfortunate scenario for Chepo is when he loses it’s a disaster. When you win, 1-0, which everyone should be content with, they ask ‘why they didn’t you win 2-0?’ If they win 2-0, ‘why didn’t you win 3-0?’”

More than 100 fans showed up to watch the team’s barely publicized training session at Emory on Tuesday. No one was disrespectful, but there was an intensity as they watched the team run through light drills.

“He is under a lot of pressure,” CONCACAF President Jeffrey Webb said. “It comes with the level of expectation. Mexico is a football nation.”

Are those expectations fair?

While Mexico has won six Gold Cups, it has never advanced past the quarterfinals (1970, 1986) of the World Cup in 14 appearances, so its history in that tournament shouldn’t dictate the demand.

Wynalda said de la Torre is handling the pressure better than any coach he’s seen, providing this example: After the loss to Panama, as de la Torre began walking down the sideline to shake the hand of Panama’s coach, Wynalda watched a bottle come flying out of the stands, right at the coaches.

De la Torre caught it, dropped it and then looked into the stands for a moment.

“No one threw anything after that,” Wynalda said.

Chepo implied that pressure comes with the job, and he seems to embrace the challenge.

“I don’t know if it’s the most difficult (job) in sports, they are all very different,” he said. “What I do know, the responsibility that I do have, for the fans, is to seek and give them happiness. In Mexico, everyone’s focused on what the national team does. There are a lot of things that come attached: the growth of our sport, what it represents for our league. The responsibility is pretty big.”