Three days after lauding the future of Mexican soccer, Javier Aguirre said he wasn't sticking around to be a part of it.
He appeared before a packed news conference in Mexico City on Wednesday to announce he was stepping down as coach after El Tri bowed out in the second round for the fifth time in as many tries.
"The first person responsible is me. I believe that I have to resign my job," Aguirre said. "It's the most honest solution, the fairest and it's something I have to do."
Mexico's fifth coach since the last World Cup, his annual salary was rumored to be nearly $4 million which, if true, would have made him the third-highest-paid national team coach.
A Nigerian nightmare: Goodluck Jonathan, the president of Nigeria, suspended his country's team from international competition for two years after its poor performance. It lost twice and tied to finish last in its group.
The other football: More than 19 million people in the U.S. saw the American's loss to Ghana on Saturday, according to Nielsen numbers for ABC and Univision, making it the most-watched soccer game in U.S. history (18.1 million watched the 1994 Cup final between Italy and Brazil). A record 106.5 million watched February's Super Bowl on TV.
kbaxter@tribune.com
