World Cup: Borgetti expects Mexico to write history

Mexican striker Jared Borgetti, a giant among scorers, expected his team will write history at the imminent FIFA World Cup, slated for June 9-July 9 in Germany.

"We had been always treated like a growing selection, but today the situation is totally different. We have gained others' respect and we are known to them, as we are going to play as favorite", said the 33-year-old player.

The history will be written if the Mexican squad, who will face Iran, Angola and Portugal in Group D this summer, is qualified to the quarter-finals for the first time out of the country.

Mexico was qualified to one of the top eight groups of the World Cup in 1970 and 1986, when the Aztecs were the host.

The Mexican number nine, known as El Zorro del Desierto (The Desert Fox) to his legions of fans, was the top scorer across the world during qualifiers with 14 goals.

The number exceeded that of Trinidad and Tobago's Stern John, who scored 12 goals, Brazil's Ronaldo, who finished with ten, as well as Portugal's Pauleta and Togo's Emmanuel Adebayor, both with 11.

Borgetti opened his scoring with four strikes against Dominican Republic, Mexico's rivals in the first round of the North, Central American and Caribbean qualifiers.

After his first-round exploits, El Zorro kept himself on the score sheet during the second qualifying stage, where Trinidad and Tobago lost 3-1 to El Tri in Port of Spain.

In the following two tournaments against St Vincent and the Grenadines, Mexico won 7-0 and 1-0, five of which went to Borgetti.

After making it comfortably into the 'Hexagonal' final qualifying phase, he got the opening goal in Mexico's super-sweet 2-1 victory over arch-rivals United States at the Azteca stadium.

By last autumn, Borgetti was back on the score sheet for Mexico with a vital strike in the 2-0 qualifying win over Costa Rica at the Azteca.

The victory moved El Tri (The Tricolor) to the brink of a place at this summer's finals and gave the player the outright lead in the race to be top scorer in preliminaries.

A penalty of Borgetti against Panama two games later not only helped make sure of Mexico's position in the World Cup finals, but also guaranteed his number-one position on score sheet.

Moreover, Borgetti was one of the stars of the FIFA Confederations Cup in Germany in 2005, where he scored three goals and subsequently earned a move to Bolton Wanderers, becoming the first Mexican to play the English Premiership.

"We have many possibilities, but we have to do our best, as we did at the last Confederations Cup", said Borgetti as to this summer's big event.

"We can be protagonists, not just participants", he added.

Factbox:

Name: Jared Francisco Borgetti Echavarria

Birthday: August 14, 1973

Place of Birth: Culiacancito, Sinaloa, northwest of Mexico

Nationality: Mexican

Height: 1.80m

Weight: 77kg

Position: forward

International Debut: against Ecuador (February 5, 1997)

Career:

Atlas (MEX)

Santos (MEX)

Dorados de Sinaloa (MEX)

Pachuca (MEX)

Bolton Wanderers (ENG)

Source: Xinhua