It's not often that a goalkeeper wins an international trophy as the starter and then is left off the roster for the next important match just months later, but that's exactly the case for Mexico's Guillermo Ochoa.
He won the Gold Cup with El Tri this summer, which put the team into the CONCACAF Cup playoff against the United States this weekend, but isn't on Mexico's squad for the match. The winner of the game will go on to compete in the Confederations Cup.
Ochoa has already played in a Confederations Cup, as he was in goal for the team's win over Japan in the 2013 edition of the tournament. But he didn't get the start for the first two games against Italy and Brazil, both losses.
Ochoa's struggle to lock down a starter's spot for Mexico has become a bit of a pattern. Only 30 years old, he first made a World Cup roster in 2006 as a backup. Despite getting several caps after that tournament, he was surprisingly a backup again four years later when then-El Tri coach Javier Aguirre preferred Oscar Perez in the net.
In 2014, Ochoa finally was named a starter for the World Cup and his performances in goal helped Mexico advance to the round of 16, but no further -- the same as his predecessors in the previous tournaments. Mexico's desire to get past the fifth game of the World Cup, the "Quinto Partido," has become an almost mythical Holy Grail quest for the squad.
At the very least, though, it seemed that Ochoa was in solid position as the team's starter, even as then-coach Miguel Herrera complained that his goalkeeper needed playing time on a European top-division club. The goalkeeper had been at Ajaccio, but the club suffered relegation to Ligue 2 before the World Cup. Signed to a contract by Malaga in Spain following the tournament, he has languished on the bench, as first-choice goalkeeper Carlos Kameni has been playing well. Ochoa hasn't had any playing time in La Liga since joining the club.
Despite Herrera's complaints about Ochoa needing game time, he still put the goalkeeper into the crucial Gold Cup tournament ahead of all the other options in Mexico. Yet once the coach was fired by the Mexican federation, Ochoa was cast adrift by Herrera's replacement, interim coach Ricardo "Tuca" Ferretti. Unlike the Dos Santos brothers, who were left off earlier friendly rosters by Ferretti but brought back for this key match against the U.S. (although Giovani Dos Santos will miss the game due to an injury), Ochoa has not been recalled.
More than any other player on the field, goalkeepers are subject to the whims of a coach's preference, enduring faith or belief in the "hot hand." Yet Ferretti's logic in leaving Ochoa behind seems unassailable. Nothing prepares goalkeepers for important games more than playing in games, and Ochoa isn't doing that in league play. Practice games and a few competition matches here and there in the Copa del Rey aren't the same thing.
Moises Munoz, Jonathan Orozco and Alfredo Talavera are all starters for their squads in Mexico, and they are the goalkeepers Ferretti has brought to the CONCACAF Cup. Munoz, 35, is the rumored starter for El Tri. It's not his first experience in an important playoff game. Munoz was the goalkeeper for Mexico's win-or-stay-home games against New Zealand in late 2013 for a ticket to the World Cup.
Ochoa will watch the CONCACAF Cup from Europe. His decision to take his talent to the continent has seemed a wise one at times, but he might be well-served to find another team at this point. A move to Liverpool was a possibility that never materialized, but serving out the final two years of his contract to Malaga on the bench might relegate Ochoa even further down the ladder of goalkeeping options for Mexico.
Then again, a coaching change took Ochoa's starting spot away in the first place, and a coaching change may bring it back again, regardless of his playing time (or lack of it) with Malaga. Ferretti is contracted to coach only one more game, no matter the outcome of the match against the U.S.. When Mexico officially announces the team's new coach, with Juan Carlos Osorio stating that he is set to replace the interim coach, Ochoa's fortunes may rise yet again if his skills are still valued.