What separates an immensely talented team from a possibly great team? Coming out of tough situations with genius which is impossible to counter. It was written all over the 24 pass goal. It was also written over the Maxi Rodriguez goal.

BBC Live commentary described it thus moments after it happened:

What a goal! Maxi Rodriguez chests down Juan Pablo Sorin’s cross-field pass and lashes in a left-foot shot on the volley that arrows into the top corner.

Sanchez fumed at the defenders but I don’t think much could be done - impressive pass and astonishing finishing. The goal was much more important than the 24 pass goal in the context of the world cup as had it not occured, a strong favourite for the tournament could have exited early.

The Mexican team kept on attacking whenever it could, which coupled with their defense, set up an exciting match. There were if’s and but’s of course - Heinze could have easily been red carded which would have made things much more interesting. In injury time during normal play, the Argentine goal was disallowed when it wasn’t offside.

You have to keep on winning. There can be no excuses in the end. Argentina didn’t need any. Bravo!

For part 14 of the series, I caught up with 28 year old Mario Ortegón from Campeche, México. Mario is an Electronics Engineer having graduated at the Universidad de las Américas, in Puebla, México. The last two months, Mario has been living in Germany as a Systems Programmer. ‘The World Cup was as important in my decision of moving to Europe as my new job’, Mario discloses.

I thank Mario for agreeing to the interview.

Tell us a bit about the Mexican football history and the football culture which exists.

If we go far far back in time, we would find that Mexicans have been always crazy about ball games. The old mesoamerican ball game is thousands of years old, and was played by both the Mayas and the Aztecs from the earliest times. All prehispanic cities have at least one ball court, and some had even more than one.

Soccer was introduced in Mexico by British mining prospectors in Pachuca at the turn of the century, and the oldest club is almost 100 years old. The league started very early, and in the 40’s it was professionalized. The Mexican League is one of the strongest in the American Continent, paying very high salaries and with highly competitive teams. Many good players from Argentina and Brasil, and even Europe, play or have played in México. The stadiums are quite big. The largest of them, Estadio Azteca, has been home to two world cup finals and has a capacity of 110,000 people, making it one of the biggest stadiums in the world.

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