World Cup: Mexico Breaks Through Iran Defense in Win

Oswaldo Sanchez Photo Courtesy: us.news1.yimg.com

NUREMBERG, Germany - Mexico gave its raucous fans a reason to celebrate and a grieving Oswaldo Sanchez a reason to smile.

Iran missed a chance to replace talk of its political turmoil with discussion of its on-field success.

Hours after the echoes of a protest against Iran's government faded in this Bavarian city, Iran hoped to salvage at least one point from its World Cup opener on Sunday.

Mexico, whose goalkeeper had to fly home on Thursday to bury his father, had other ideas, scoring twice in the last 15 minutes for a 3-1 victory.

El Tri's players rushed to hug Sanchez, who rejoined them Saturday night.

Sanchez, who was given flowers and condolences from the Iranian team before the match, turned in a solid outing just 24 hours after returning from Mexico — so much so that Lavolpe said the keeper appeared "to have an angel watching over him."

Iran coach Branko Ivankovic was left to explain how his team fell apart late in the second half — and whether politics had cast a shadow on the field.

"Nobody is allowed to discuss politics," Ivankovic said at the postgame news conference. "We are allowed to discuss the opponent, to discuss football, and in this case, to discuss Mexico."

There was plenty to discuss about that, too — namely, how Iran's late-game lapses turned the Mexican fans' bored whistles into cheers.

"Maybe the players thought that after two or three substitutions, Mexico is going to be much easier or something," Ivankovic said.

Instead, Mexico cracked open Iran's defense.

Omar Bravo's second goal of the match, in the 76th minute, put Mexico up 2-1. Three minutes later, two second-half substitutions hooked up for the clincher when Zinha headed in Francisco Fonseca's cross.

"In the first half, everyone was very nervous," Mexico coach Ricardo Lavolpe said through a translator. "We weren't getting possession of the ball. In the second half, the team stabilized. We had more possession and that's why we won the game."

After trading goals in the first half, Iran dropped as many as five defenders back from the 60th minute on. The strategy worked until defender Yahya Golmohammedi, who scored the equalizer in the 36th minute, made a bad pass.

Zinha, also known as Antonio Naelson, fed the ball up the middle to Bravo, who beat goalkeeper Ebrahim Mirzapour for the go-ahead goal. Mirzapour's poor clearing kick set up the scoring sequence for the Mexicans.

Mexico's set pieces failed to come together early in the match, but paid off in the 28th minute after a foul by Iran's Ali Karimi.

Pavel Pardo's free kick from the right side found Guillermo Franco in the box. Franco cleverly headed the ball to Bravo lurking virtually unmarked near the back goalpost. He gave it a right-footed tap past forward Vashid Hashemian and Mirzapour for a 1-0 lead.

Iran's equalizer was a textbook bit of opportunism by Golmohammedi. Mexican Sanchez could only deflect Hashemian's close-in header off Karimi's corner kick, and Golmohammedi took the ball at the top of the area and fired it just under the crossbar into the roof netting.

Before Iran clustered up, both teams missed several chances in a scrappy and often chaotic game.

Mexico, running a three-forward attack in the first half with Bravo, Franco and Jared Borgetti, was sloppy in its passing at both ends of the field. But the defense, led by Rafael Marquez, kept Iran from capitalizing on lapses.

Marquez, the team's captain, moved into more of an attacking role after the break and it paid off.

Lavolpe went back to a conventional 4-4-2 alignment to start the second half, substituting Zinha — also known as Antonio Naelson — for Franco. He also was forced to take out Borgetti in the 52nd minute.

Borgetti, who led all scorers in qualifying with 14 goals and is Mexico's top career scorer with 38 international goals, was limping when he came off and had his left thigh briefly examined by the team's trainers.

It was only the second victory for Mexico in a World Cup game in Europe, the other coming 3-1 over South Korea in a 1998 opener.

There were 45 fouls in the game, 26 on Mexico.

"I don't know why," Lavolpe said. "I have to see the video. That might just mean that the two teams tried to stop the play by fouling."

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