M.L.S. Brings Chicharito Closer to Mexico. But Maybe Not Close Enough.

Part of the problem, he said, is that Mexican fans will always see playing in the United States as inferior to playing in Mexico. For Cuauhtémoc Blanco, another of Mexico’s biggest stars who headed to M.L.S. as he neared the end of his career, the decision was difficult because of perceptions in his homeland that the United States is where careers go to die.

“Everyone told me that I had gone there to retire,” said Blanco, who joined the Chicago Fire in 2007, “but I still came back and played the World Cup in 2010, and several years more.”

Hernández, like Sánchez and Blanco, brushed off the criticism from Mexicans about his decision. But in an interview with Fox Sports, he clarified his comments about using the word “retirement,” saying he still had plenty left to give.

“A word is a word, and why do you take it in the negative extreme?” he said. “There’s a lot of positive extremes, too. Imagine if I decided to go to Mexico, and if I say the same word. Liga MX is not like a retirement league in Latin America, right? So it’s just — I’m close to it.

“The thing is, when you say something, people have a very thin skin, so you need to overexplain, overexplain, overexplain. It’s like onions: You have to take all of them, all the layers so they can understand.

“This is not a league of retirement. That’s why I came.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/sports/soccer/chicharito-galaxy-mls-mexico.html