Zague to La Hormiga: The Hardest Part Is Not Arriving, but Staying

Inside a small studio in Mexico City, Luis Roberto Alves - the man an entire generation of Mexican fans knows simply as Zague - sent a message about the young forward who has just landed at Olympiacos. He did not talk about the first goal. He did not talk about the contract or the wages. He talked about what remains after the flashbulbs fade: how to stay. "The hard thing is not arriving, but staying," Zague said, and in that sentence lay the long history of Mexican football that I have followed for years through a small screen. I remember a night spent rewatching old footage, when a Mexican striker scored on his European debut and then vanished from the squad a few weeks later. The stands were empty, but the hearts still beat to the rhythm of the ball - and I understood that the moment of arrival is only a door opening, not a finished room. 'La Hormiga' González - "The Ant" - has just set foot at Olympiacos. This is a Greek football destination, a club familiar in European competition but outside the top five leagues. It is a stepping stone, a shop window, a place where a young striker can prove he can stand firm against more seasoned defences. At his age, Europe is no longer a dream. It is a test. What matters is that Zague does not stand in the position of a neutral pundit. He is one of the greatest scorers in the history of the Mexican national team, a man who once stood exactly where González stands now, and who lived through the very fear the youngster is about to face. When a man like that speaks, the advice carries the weight of memory, not merely of opinion. In his remarks, Zague spent most of his time naming a group of Mexican forwards plying their trade in Europe: Raúl Jiménez, Santiago Giménez, Pato Salas, and González himself. Four names, four different leagues, one shared current. This is what I call Mexico's "export generation" - not a lone star, but a scattered galaxy across the continent. What stands out is that Mexican football does not export defenders or holding midfielders this way. It exports strikers. That is a cultural choice, a way of defining identity: Mexicans score goals. But a broad current does not mean a deep one. Looking at those four names, I see the different tiers of European football. Jiménez and Giménez have touched the top leagues. González sits on the Greek rung. Between those tiers lies a gap in quality, in pressure, in expectation. And that gap is exactly where Zague's advice becomes precious. Here I want to pause on what I call the "consolidation phase". In a player's career there are two decisive moments. The first is when he is discovered - called up to the first team, transferred abroad, given a chance. The second, and far harder, is when he must hold on to his place. The first match can be won with talent. But the fiftieth match can only be won with habit, with discipline, with the ability to endure goalless weeks without collapsing. Mexican forwards in Europe tend to meet three obstacles in this phase. The first is physical. European football runs more, collides more, and a striker who once shone at home can be crushed across two high-intensity matches a week. The second is competition. At Olympiacos, a starting spot can be contested by players from five different countries, and one poor game can send a man to the bench for three weeks. The third, and subtlest, is psychological. Far from family, far from language, far from home cooking - that is a battle no scoreboard records. I have seen this while tracking the careers of many young players. They arrive in Europe with a suitcase full of hope. They score on their debut, and the media back home call them "the future". Then winter comes, they sit on the bench, and the story curdles into a silent disappointment. This is why I always write about football, but in truth I am writing about people. Zague understands that better than anyone. He offers no tactical advice. He does not talk about movement inside the box or positioning. He talks about endurance. And when one of the greatest scorers in national-team history talks about endurance, it is no cliché. It is a lesson paid for in years. Interestingly, alongside the advice for González, Zague also offered optimism for the Mexican national team under coach Rafa Márquez. He seemed excited by the new project, and from that a large question emerged: how big can Mexico dare to dream? I remember that after a World Cup judged a success, the mood around El Tricolor always carries two waves. One is jubilant, saying this is the moment to reach higher. One is cautious, reminding that the gap with the true powers remains intact. Zague stands between those two waves. He says: "Why not dream big?" But then he reminds himself of England. And this is the crux I want to dig into. When measuring Mexico against England - a genuine football power - Zague admits Mexico is still not enough. But he says so without offering a single metric. No xG, no possession minutes, no tactical breakdown. It is a gut feeling, and I believe that very moment is what gives the remarks their value. Mexican football sits on the border between aspiration and reality, and Zague is the man standing on that border saying: we can dream, but let us not fool ourselves. This is where I want to offer a different angle, one I consider the blind spot of Mexican football's collective memory. People often speak about "going to Europe" as an achievement. But that achievement is measured by congratulatory posts on social media, not by minutes played. Meanwhile, what truly shapes a career is not the moment of signing, but the days nobody remembers: early-morning training, long flights, matches spent on the bench. There is a paradox here. When a player lands in Europe, the media back home celebrate. When that player fails, the silence often arrives faster than any criticism. And that silence is the dangerous part. It lets us forget that behind every contract is a human being trying to stay. I believe the lesson from González does not lie in Greece. It lies in the distance between being noticed and being needed. A striker can be noticed in a debut, but he is only needed when the coach believes he is the first man he thinks of when the team requires a goal. That is the difference between "arriving" and "staying". Skin colour does not decide talent, but it decides how people see you. In the case of Mexican players, the story is not about skin colour but about a passport. A young striker from Guadalajara must always prove a little more, endure a little more, and suffer a little more than a colleague from Madrid or Manchester. It is an invisible pressure, absent from every statistic, yet present in every training session. On the national-team side, Rafa Márquez's project is in its early phase, and Zague is one of the first voices to publicly place faith in it. That means more than a compliment. It is a cultural signal: a former great accepting that his own generation has closed, and that the new one needs room to grow. But precisely for that reason, the pressure rises too. A new project is always welcomed with hope, and always judged by results. So how should we read this story? I do not think it is a story about a transfer. It is a story about what happens after the transfer is signed. For González, the measure of success will not be the day he debuts for Olympiacos, but whether he is still in the squad in March or April. For Mexico under Márquez, the measure will not be wins against peers, but results against the true powers. The ball is round, but fate is never round - it rolls through the cracks of history. For Mexican football, that crack lies in the distance between talent and endurance, between moments of brilliance and an entire long season. Zague understands this, and perhaps that is why he chose to speak of staying rather than celebrate arriving. That advice is not only for a young man in Greece. It is for anyone who has stood at the threshold of a dream. Because football, in the end, is not the sport of moments of arrival. It is the sport of those who try to stay. And the question I leave for the reader: when the applause has faded, what do you stay for?