Mexico Ready to Make Giovanni Dos Santosas Key Player

Mexico began 2017 in positive fashion after a 1-0 win over Iceland.

This victory helped banish memories of the goalless draw with Panama in the final World Cup qualification game. The win over Iceland came as a result of a solitary goal by Alan Pulido in the 21st minute. Mexico coach Juan Carlos Osorio has been pressing a lot of importance on the defending of the national team. Recent results have been excellent with the team managing three clean sheets in the last five matches. On the disappointing note, Mexico have not been able to score more than six goals in these 5 games.

The win over Iceland comes at a very important time for Mexico, as they will be up against Costa Rica and Trinidad and Tobago in back-to-back World Cup qualification games towards the end of March. Even though Mexico started the World Cup qualification game with a historic 2-1 win over the United States, they could only manage a goalless draw with Panama in the subsequent game.

As a result, it still leaves Mexico with an incapability when it comes to building an attack capable of challenging across the world over different competitions. Osorio says that he is keen on making former Tottenham midfielder Giovanni Dos Santos as the key member in the Mexican first-team.

"With Giovani in the first half and the last 25 minutes with Luis Montes, both of them left-footed, what we tried to do is play them on the right side. Every time they controlled the ball with the inside of their foot, it takes them to the inside position, and that allowed us to play the wingbacks in behind them and have more width. So I think it was very productive because we many, many times penetrated them on the flanks and produced wonderful crosses," said the Mexico manager after the win over Iceland.