The 'Hormiga' González Goal Drought Is Not a Finishing Problem — It Is a Usage Problem

On a February evening I was watching Mexico's match against Iceland at a tea stall on a Chattogram street corner. The ball went to Gallardo's left foot, then a low cross — someone threw himself at it inside the box and buried it. Someone on the next bench said, "This kid is a goal machine at club level; where does he disappear for the national team?" I put down my cup and said the fault is not his. A kid who scored 24 goals for Guadalajara does not have a scoring problem; the problem is he is called for the last ten minutes and asked to do sixty minutes of work alone. What the Mexican media calls "falta de gol" — a shortage of goals — is really a role crisis. I went to the tea stall for gossip and found a World Cup thesis.

Armando "Hormiga" González — the nickname means ant — is the forward of a Mexican generation that the country's media has labelled "a major bet for the attack" for more than a year. The numbers come straight from the MEXSPORT report: 24 goals in a season for Guadalajara Chivas, then a move to Olympiacos in Greece, where he scored 4 goals and added 1 assist in his first few official matches. At club level he is a specific kind of predator — a box arrival who pounces when the ball comes into the area. But for El Tri his account stands at just 1 goal and 1 assist, both in that one Iceland match, which Mexico won 4-0.

Mexico's attack is now built around Raúl Jiménez — a mix of target forward and false nine — with Julián Quiñones as co-protagonist. In that structure González's place is a rotation player, an impact sub. He came on in the final minutes of his World Cup debut against South Africa. Coach Javier Aguirre has not taken him much into account, yet still gave him a World Cup squad place; in Rafa Márquez's eyes he is "good things but not yet decisive." The team sees him as a future asset, not a current starter. That is where the real story hides.

The number is about minutes, not finishing. González's only El Tri goal also came in exactly that mould — a low cross from Gallardo, finished inside the box. A forward who cannot score gets his goals from long shots outside the box, or never gets them at all. González's goal was a direct repeat of his club habit. So where is the shortfall? In service and minutes. A box finisher must be fed the ball; if you send him on in the 75th minute when the team is already 2-0 up, his job becomes holding the ball and killing time, not scoring. The same player in the Iceland match had an open pitch, quick attacks and repeated permission to enter the box — and produced 1 goal and 1 assist. Change the environment and the number changes; that is arithmetic, not mystery.

The substitute-striker ledger is mathematically unfair. A forward coming off the bench faces three problems: few touches in the box, an opponent that has already reorganised, and no rhythm at all. The report itself writes of "a lack of continuity and few minutes." This story is not new in Mexico. In 2026 I tracked 83 behind-closed-doors matches and found home wins fell from 43 percent to 25 percent; that experience taught me that much of what we call "form" is really environment and context. The empty stadiums taught me that football lives in the gaps, not the noise. A substitute's entire career lives in that gap.

The Iceland match is both proof and trap. An open, high-tempo 4-0 rout is heaven for a box finisher. Mexico had the ball that night, had the space, and González had the ball in the box. But against a low block and a compressed defence his involvement will naturally drop. Building an "expectation baseline" from one match is the small-sample trap. The report itself uses cautious language — "so far his most productive match" — and that restraint is the correct method.

The club-versus-country gap is not a finishing collapse but a usage difference. Twenty-four at Chivas, four at Olympiacos, one for El Tri. Side by side, the numbers suggest a forward who has suddenly forgotten how to score. But these are three different jobs in three different environments: at Chivas he is the main striker, at Olympiacos he is a project signing being given minutes, and for Mexico he is the man outside a Jiménez-centred structure. Same player, three different contracts. One thing needs to be made clear: without a per-90 ledger, judging a substitute forward is like judging an actor's performance from the scoreboard. If González's per-90 box touches, shots and expected goals sit close to Jiménez's, then the word "drought" is looking at the wrong address.

In the Mexican media an El Tri goal is a kind of currency. However good the club form, a forward who does not score for the national shirt picks up a "no marca" tag — and that tag often outlives the actual data. The same story is familiar in my own country. In 2026 Bangladesh lost the Champions Trophy semi-final to India, and I wrote from a tea stall that the cause was the pace of Tamim's 70 and Mushfiqur's 30, not India's invincibility. That piece went viral because people recognised the story. In Mexico the same machine is running now, with goals instead of runs.

I followed the transfer market like a rumour and found a culture machine. González's path is the familiar Liga MX export model: Chivas — a member-owned club with a Mexican-players-only policy — develops and sells; a European club buys him as a middle step; and a resale option into a bigger league stays open. Olympiacos does exactly that job in the European food chain — buying young talent from secondary markets and selling upward. So González now stands on the upward slope of his asset curve, and his value at this moment is set by his scoring rate in Greece, not by his El Tri numbers.

Mexico's forward line is going through a generational change. Jiménez is senior, Quiñones and González are ascending. The succession window opens across the 2026 to 2030 cycle. At Qatar 2026 Morocco's defensive structure beat Spain and Portugal, and it taught me that organised structure often wins over star power. The 1-0 revolution is not a scoreline; it is a way of seeing. Seen that way, González's question changes: is he a luxury outside Mexico's structure, or the next part of that structure?

The economics of the substitution rule make him valuable on one side and trap him in a goal drought on the other. With bigger benches in modern football, the final twenty minutes have become a separate battlefield — big clubs and deep squads break the game open there, layering pressure on a tired opponent. In that system a fresh box finisher is priceless to the team, but his own goal tally stays artificially small because he is given only those twenty minutes. González stands exactly at that point — a "game-changer" for Mexico, and "cannot score" in the media's eye.

For Olympiacos, González is not only a sporting asset. The Greek club can also use him to grow sales in the Latin American market — shirts, media, Mexican viewers. So his national-team presence is commercially useful too. But that gain depends on one condition: goals. And goals depend on minutes. The loop jams right there — the club wants him playing, the country wants him benched, and the media wants him judged.

This is where the Zoom-era youth story enters. In 2026 I learned to watch Pedri — in the Spain-Italy semi-final the 18-year-old completed 65 of 69 passes, yet Spain lost because the squad had no No. 9. Between Zoom parties and Pedri, I learned how youth survives a closed world. In a closed world talent is only visible when someone gives it a chance to be seen. The same question applies to González — is the team giving him a chance to be seen, or just sending him on to absolve itself?

One thing must be added. Mexico's attacking story is not just one player's story; it is a structure's story. A Jiménez-centred method succeeds when Jiménez is fit and in form. But across a tournament cycle, as age and load grow, a team must build alternatives. If that alternative is González, he should have been built two years ago — not by sitting on the bench but by starting. Big-tournament experience cannot be bought; it must be earned. Morocco's 2026 heights were also the fruit of structure and continuity, not of a single star.

I could be wrong, and that possibility should be left open. First, a modern striker does more than finish — pressing, link-up, defensive work. Those who play in the Jiménez-Quiñones structure can break an opponent's build-up; González's profile is mainly a box predator. If Aguirre believes that profile does not fit his method, then behind the low minutes there is not only "bad luck" but a different tactical judgment. Second, Liga MX's open, less compressed defending can inflate a forward's goal count; Chivas' 24 goals may not translate one-for-one into a tougher European league. Third, some 2026 events — the February Iceland match, the World Cup — cannot yet be independently verified; my analysis rests on a MEXSPORT report, and using one article as if it were two sources is not right. Still, what can be said now: using the phrase "goal drought" without per-90 box-touch data means turning a small sample into a large verdict. Put club form and national-team structure side by side and the picture is not a finishing crisis but a distribution of opportunity.

In the next international window I want a test. If González starts three matches in a row, gets the ball in the box, and still does not score — then the Mexican media is right and I am wrong. But if his per-90 box touches sit close to Jiménez's, he will score, and the "no marca" tag will flip within one match. The accounting is done on the pitch, not in the headline.