By Gerardo Romero
Sep 26, 2024, 08:15 AM EDT
The captain of the Diablos Rojos del Toluca, Claudio Baeza, decided to speak out regarding the controversy that has been generated in recent weeks within the Liga MX due to the rule that requires giving minutes to younger soccer players in order to develop their skills and thus have a base for a possible participation within the Mexican national team in the future.
He made these statements to various media outlets, in which he assured that he fully supports this measure because everyone has the opportunity to see minutes in the top categories; he also stressed that they should be taken advantage of and that they should be able to get the best out of themselves so as not to affect the team and be able to support them in each of the matches.
“The Rule for Minors was used here before. If the Federation (Mexican Football Federation) does it, it is because it was useful at some point. I don’t know if it was useful or not, but I feel that if a player has the basics and is good, he will always play,” he said.
“Obviously there is another type of player who needs to gradually gain minutes to be able to make it to the first team, to be a First Division player and to be an exportable player. There are two types of players. In my personal opinion, there are players who have better foundations and others who find it harder to mature than others,” he added in his statements.
Baeza also highlighted that Toluca must improve its defense for the next rounds of the Apertura 2024 tournament of the Liga MX if they want to have a better chance of fighting for a pass to the Liguilla.
“I feel that when you are in a big club you always have the idea of attacking with a lot of people, of always going out to look for matches and that is why we feel that maybe by attacking with too many people, the rival also plays and that is why one is exposed, but those are things that have to be worked on,” he concluded.
Paiva spoke out
Toluca coach Renato Paiva had already expressed his discontent with this situation earlier this week, considering that many of the young players still do not have the physical conditions to be able to play in Liga MX, so he argued that this rule should be studied more closely.
“I am not going to put players in just because I have to, the responsibility is that Toluca wins and today they did not win. Marcel (Ruiz) did not need minutes to play, (Alexis) Vega did not need… the good ones, those who work, those who are serious, those who have a good foundation end up appearing. We have to work with those who are not so good, we have to work with them, but at the base, it is not from today to tomorrow,” he said.
“If they want to find solutions for Mexican football, that is not the case. That is my opinion. I am not against anyone. Do you know what the limit is for foreigners in the Portuguese league? There is none because they work very well at the grassroots level, because the Federation decided with the clubs to work on an equal path for both with time, patience and structure,” concluded the coach.
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