While the talk about Mexico being the giant of CONCACAF for so long would lead many people to believe that 2014 was a fluke and that qualifying early should be the norm, this isn't true. Mexico qualifying so early is not the norm. While a team at this level should be prepared for stuff like this, with the amount of rain that Mexico City had this week, you can only do so much and Mexico did. Still, Mexico didn't suffer as much as expected and a lot less than in many occasions. Although they excellent work from the field crew helped, an hour before the game another downpour meant the field would be wet and it ended up hurting the Mexican team that is so dependent on ball movement for their play. On Thursday, Pumas’ Copa MX game against Celaya was postponed and Azteca's field was filled with puddles. Not only was it going to affect the field in Azteca but it had the possibility of cancelling the game and it would definitely make a big hit on the attendance to the event. Then to make matters worse, incredible heavy rains all week brought flooding all through Mexico City. The 'bad' campaign in the summer had brought a lot of criticism of the team that was starting to reflect in low ticket sales.

Mexico went into this game on the verge of qualifying but with a very different atmosphere that one would expect from a team on the cusp of a WC ticket. Mexico perform better than expected against really tough conditions. Here are some takes from last night’s win at the Azteca Mexican coach Juan Carlos Osorio can now start early to focus on the most important tournament in football.

It wasn't easy but Mexico was able to pull it off and thus have a completely different World Cup campaign from 2014, where they needed a playoff against New Zealand to clinch the spot. The earlier loss by the United States at home against Costa Rica meant a win for Mexico would give them the spot as the fifth team qualified to the World Cup in Russia. The cheers ran loud in Estadio Azteca after Mexico beat Panama 1-0 to clinch the World Cup Ticket.

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