HERRERA IS FOCUSSED

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Mexico's recently appointed temporary coach Miguel Herrera has said that he wants to remain focused ahead of the match with New Zealand.

Mexico recently sacked José de la Torre after a of poor results, which also saw the team perform very poorly at Brazil 2014. The World Cup qualifying campaign has also suffered under the regime of the former manager and Herrera was brought into rectify things. He has more than satisfied everyone after guiding Mexico into the World Cup finals.

He has stated that he does not want to receive the credit for this incredible performance over the last few weeks. Mexico come into the match against New Zealand after having lost three out of the last four matches. This certainly does not bode well for the team even though New Zealand are not traditionally regarded as one of the big teams. This will be regarded as one of the tests for Herrera, who is planning to use a lot of local based the players for this encounter.

“We are going in with the idea that this is 0-0 and we aren’t going to risk anything. We are going into [Tuesday's] match with the same attitude of being as or even more determined than we were in the previous match. Until we qualify we won’t think about anything else but that. The 23 players I have here are the national team, they don’t belong to any club right now,” said the national team manager ahead of this World Cup intercontinental play-off encounter.

Herrera has said that his team will be going into the match with the idea that the scores are level. New Zealand demonstrated excellent defensive organisation as they were surprise qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup. They have since developed tremendously, which will be something that Mexico to be on the lookout.