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Bring on cold and snow!
"This is not cold cold. This is fresh cold,'' says the famed Mexico soccer coach, the man who has coached a record 212 world games and has taken three different countries - Mexico, Costa Rica and the USA - to the World Cup and is about to make it an unprecedented fourth with Mexico again.
"This is excellent weather to play the game. If you are not running, then maybe it is cold. But that is the game, yes?
"All of this is a quality of the mind,'' continues the world's winningest international coach over a cup of hot tea back at the team hotel after a 10 a.m. practice with the temperature at minus three C-C-C-Celsius.
"I'd like to see snow. Snow is the best. I hope it will snow a little bit. To play in the snow is to enjoy.''
A DAMNING DENIAL
Sounds like a snow job to me. And, if yesterday's practice was any indication, the body language of the Mexican players was a damning denial of their coach and his warm words as well.
"It is so cold,'' said Mexico forward Ricardo Pelaez. "In my life I have never been this cold. But I like this better than so very, very hot. You sleep better. And we are here for many days. We have time for, how you say it, acclimatization. I don't think we have a problem.
"In Mexico we have Toluca. It gets cold in Toluca,'' he said of the city which has an even higher altitude than Mexico City. "Last year I saw snow for the first time near Toluca. But it stayed only three or four days, not months.''
Pelaez says the weather won't stop the team which is now ranked ninth in the latest Coca-Cola FIFA world ratings.
"We will work so hard. We want to be in the World Cup. We want to finish first in CONCACAF. We have to eliminate Canada.
"What happened to Canada's team?'' he then asks. "They are so bad? Four years ago we go to Toronto and we have trouble. We won 2-1. But it was difficult. Canada should be in the World Cup. They are a hard team. What happened?''
Famed goalkeeper Jorge Campos' teeth were chattering, too.
"This is very, very cold,'' he said after practice. "I have never been this cold in my life. My hands and my feet are the coldest.''
At least, as the 'keeper, Campos is wearing gloves and pants.
"Yes,'' he said. "But I have to stand.''
Goalkeepers, obviously, have long periods of not moving much. Especially Mexican goalkeepers. In Canada's history of games in Azteca Stadium, a shot on goal has been a big deal.
"But I don't care about anything,'' says Campos. "It's more important to be in the World Cup.''
He says he'll will himself to be warm.
Five of the Mexican players were here last year with the Under-23 team which won the World Cup qualifying and played Canada before 19,401 fans on a decent day. But there were some chilly evening games here against other countries.
Oswaldo Sanchez, Duilio Davino, Enrique Alfaro, Cuauhtemoc Blanco and Pavel Parno were all members of that team.
They know cool. Bora knows cold. He was born and raised in Yugoslavia.
"Yugoslavia is this same weather,'' he says. "I remember playing in snow up to my knees.''
`THIS IS GOOD FOR US'
Bora - everybody in Mexico, including all headline writers, refer to him only by his first name with seldom a mention of Milutinovic, his last name - has his team a win or a tie away from qualifying for France. And he says a game like this should help more than hurt.
"This is good for us. It gives us much more chance to be together and build our future. We need to be a team. And, this, I think helps to build us as a team to be ready to make our best effort.''
Not that the effort has been so shabby to this point.
"This has been super,'' says Bora of the World Cup quadrennial following his coaching the American team to the USA '94 World Cup success story.
"We won the Gold Cup defeating Brazil. We won two USA Cups. We lost 3-2 to Brazil in one of the best games ever at the Copa Americas Cup. It's been a good situation for everything.''
Bora says he expects Canada to give the Mexicans everything they have in this one.
Mexico represents the only prize Canada really has left to play for.
Beat Mexico and at least they've accomplished something in this round in which they couldn't even beat El Salvador once after beating them both times in the previous round.
The one thing Canada has going for it in this game is the weather.
Wanna play with skates and sticks, senor?
NEXT ROUNDS: Round of 16 || Quarter-finals || Semi-finals
GROUP A: Brazil, Morocco, Norway, Scotland
GROUP B: Austria, Cameroon, Chile, Italy
GROUP C: Denmark, France, Saudi Arabia, South Africa
GROUP D: Bulgaria, Nigeria, Paraguay, Spain
GROUP E: Belgium, Holland, Mexico, South Korea
GROUP F: Germany, Iran, United States, Yugoslavia
GROUP G: Colombia, England, Romania, Tunisia
GROUP H: Argentina, Croatia, Jamaica, Japan