During the Nazi occupation of Paris, the Gestapo frequently raided Pablo Picasso’s Left Bank apartment and studio at 7 rue de Grands-Augustins, a few steps from the Seine.

On one of the raids, sometime in 1940 or 1941, a Gestapo agent pointed to a photograph of “Guernica,” the Spanish artist’s masterpiece mural depicting the 1937 Nazi firebombing of the Basque town.

“Did you do that?” the Gestapo agent asked.

“No,” Picasso snapped, “you did.”

To understand Mexico national team coach Javier Aguirre, the fighter, the survivor, the dreamer, the savior, the man known to friends and foes alike as “El Vasco” – the Basque – you have to start in Guernica.

“Guernica,” he once told the Orange County Register, “is the beginning.”

It is the starting point where Aguirre begins to trace his family and his life’s journey, an odyssey retold with a poignancy and recognition of a man fully aware it is only a matter of a few split seconds, a few meters one way or the other, that he is here to tell it.

Around 4:30 pm on April 26, 1937, a Monday, market day, German pilots with the Luftwaffe’s Condor division, at the request the Nazi allies, Franco’s Nationalist regime, began dropping incendiary and explosive devices on Guernica in what is believed to be the first-ever carpet bombing of a civilian population.

Aguirre’s mother, Maria Carmen, then 7, was playing outside when the bombs began to fall around her. She escaped death only by finding cover in a nearby church. The bombings literally created a firestorm, levelling between 85 to 99% of the town, with what was left continuing to burn for days. According to some, more than 1,600 civilians, men, women and children were killed by the Nazis, nearly one out of every five persons then living in Guernica.

At the time, Aguirre’s father, Basilio, 10 years older than his future wife, was a resistance fighter in the Spanish Civil War. He was eventually captured by Franco’s Nationalists, beaten and later sent to North Africa to fight for Spain as a POW.

“Maybe that’s why I’m a fighter,” Aguirre, 67, said.

Aguirre’s refusal to duck a fight, even when facing imposing odds against him, is evident in his decision to return a third time to lead Mexico in a World Cup.

El Tri opens the 2026 World Cup, the first-ever tournament to be hosted by three countries, against South Africa at Estadio Azteca Thursday, favored not only to win Group A but to reach the Round of 16, a projection that seemed unthinkable when Aguirre agreed to a third stint as Mexican national team boss in July 2024.

“We want to make history. That’s the goal [winning the group],” Mexico defender Mateo Chávez said. “That’s the number one objective: winning the group.”

Aguirre walked into familiar territory: Mexico in the midst of another national crisis over a string of embarrassing results for El Tri. At the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Mexico failed to make it out of the first round at the tournament for the first time since 1978. Two years later El Tri also didn’t make it out of the group stage of the Copa America.

As it had when Mexico was on the verge of failing to qualify for the 2002 and 2010 World Cups, the Mexican Football Federation (FMF) turned to Aguirre to salvage the country’s hopes for the biggest World Cup in the nation’s history.

“For me as a Mexican, there is no greater joy or satisfaction than representing, in any way, in whatever it may be,” Aguirre said. “I dedicated myself to football and I have this opportunity to represent my country, my flag, my people, against another country in an international competition. That is the greatest joy my job can give me.”

Aguirre’s return to the El Tri sideline has also brought joy to the team’s millions of fans on both sides of the border. Under Aguirre, Mexico won both the 2025 CONCACAF Nations League and the Gold Cup. Mexico enters the World Cup riding an eight-game unbeaten streak, including wins against tournament participants Australia (1-0) and Ghana (2-0) in May and a 5-1 romp over Serbia last week.

Aguirre has convinced Mexican players to embrace the pressure of playing at home.

“Javier mentioned it, that in these types of situations you have to know how to play with the pressures,” Chavez told reporters this week. “Since the Gold Cup, he told us that everyone says we are the favorites.

“We also have to know how to maintain these types of situations, because many times we find ourselves on the other side, that we are not the favorites, that we face great teams and when now you are the favorite you also have to learn to play with that, and have the courage to be the one who goes forward.”

In many ways, that has been the theme of Aguirre’s life.

The first time Aguirre was hired to coach El Tri, the Mexican government was gearing up for congressional hearings into what had come to be known as the “National Deception.”

Manuel Lapuente coached Mexico’s unlikely 1998 World Cup run and its 1999 FIFA Confederations Cup victory, but he was fired, the victim of politics within the Federation of Mexican Football. He was replaced by Enrique Meza, whose resume included a string of Mexican titles with Toluca and a reputation as a players’ coach.

Under Meza, player cliques developed, stars were pampered, discipline waned. The night before a loss to Argentina in Los Angeles, Mexico players partied until dawn at a Sunset Strip nightclub.

At the midway point of qualifying, Mexico was 1-3-1 and next-to-last in the six-team CONCACAF qualifying group. “A true disaster,” veteran Televisa broadcaster Enrique Bermudez said. After a 2-1 Costa Rica victory at Mexico City’s famed Estadio Azteca, Costa Rica forward Hernan Medford boasted: “The giant is dead.”

The FMF board fired Meza and offered the job to Aguirre, who had coached tiny Pachuca to a Mexican First Division title. Whether Aguirre would take it was another question.

“Taking it could have been a very bad mistake (for Aguirre),” Jimmy Goldsmith, managing director of the Mexican national team, told the Register in 2002. “Not qualifying for the World Cup could have been a disaster for his career.”

Aguirre was driving in Mexico City with his wife Silvia Carrion when his cell phone rang with the FMF offer.

“Yes, I will take it. Yes!” Aguirre shouted. “I want to start right now.”

“I am crazy, it’s true,” he said later.

“He knew it would be a struggle,” Carrion said. “But he had to take it. He’s a fighter. It’s in his blood. He has Basque blood.”

Aguirre’s parents moved to Mexico City in 1951. Twice Basilio Aguirre built and lost a fortune, defrauded by business partners one time, the victim of Mexico’s economy the other. Twice he rebuilt his fortune.

Aguirre was expected to join the family’s party supply business when he entered the University of Mexico City. Aguirre, then a 17-year-old freshman with no dreams of a soccer career, was spotted playing in a Sunday pickup game by a scout for Club America, the most successful team in Mexican soccer history.

“The guy said, ‘Hey, you, I need a couple of pictures and your birth certificate because you are a new member of the America team,’” Aguirre recalled.

America sent him to the North American Soccer League’s Los Angeles Aztecs to develop under famed Dutch coach Rinus Michels. “He made me cry,” Aguirre said. “He would say, ‘Mexican, you don’t know the game, your country stinks.’ He was very hard.”

Aguirre returned to Mexico, leading Club America to the 1983-84 title and earning his way into the Mexican national team. Aguirre played 59 matches for Mexico, scoring 13 goals. He was part of a Mexican side that knocked off Belgium and Bulgaria in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico before losing to eventual tournament runner-up West Germany in a quarterfinal penalty shoot-out. Aguirre received a red card in the 107th minute of the quarterfinal, becoming the first Mexican player to be sent off in a World Cup game.

Despite the ejection, “being part of the national team and being able to play in a World Cup at home is priceless,” Aguirre said.

After working as an assistant coach for Mexico in the 1994 World Cup, Aguirre packed up his family and moved to Spain, where he studied in a coaching academy at Real Madrid. But when he failed to land a spot coaching in the academy’s top program, he decided to return to Mexico, making a stop in Saint-Etienne, France, to watch El Tri take on a powerhouse Dutch side in the 1998 World Cup.

Mexico came from behind to draw with the Dutch and advance to the second round in one of the most unlikely results of the 1998 World Cup.

That night Aguirre and his family were among the Mexican fans who had taken over the town square, singing, dancing and toasting the improbable. He was spotted by two old friends who asked him what he was doing. Aguirre, a former Mexico World Cup team standout, explained he had just finished studying coaching in Spain and was looking for a job.

“Aguirre, Aguirre,” one of the men said convincingly, “in four years you will coach Mexico in the World Cup.”

“I thought they were drunk. They were,” Aguirre said laughing, recalling the night in 2002. “I took it as a joke. A crazy idea. A wild dream. But here I am.”

At the time, he was days away from leading Mexico in the 2002 World Cup, less than a year after taking over a team on the brink of elimination and with little hope of qualifying for Korea/Japan 2002, and with the strength of his personality willed it to a five-match undefeated streak and a spot in the tournament.

“He rescued Mexico,” former Mexican national team star Leonardo Cuellar said.

“The savior of Mexican soccer,” said Martin Vasquez, a former teammate on the Mexican national team.

Aguirre had done so by refusing to cater to the team’s stars and daring to criticize Mexico’s approach to the game. Most of all, he molded a team that is a reflection of himself.

“A fighter,” Aguirre said, pounding a fist into his other hand.

“He has changed the mentality of the Mexican player,” midfield workhorse Alberto Garcia Apse said.

After returning to North America, he turned down a job coaching in Major League Soccer at San Jose when he felt MLS officials tried to lowball him in salary talks. Eventually he landed at Pachuca, where he quickly shaped the small club into a title contender with an aggressive style.

Aguirre wasted little time taking off the gloves with the national team. He dropped superstar prima donnas such as 1998 World Cup hero Luis Hernandez for scrappers such as the hard-nosed Garcia Aspe. In his meeting with the team, Aguirre pointed to an open door and said anyone unwilling to follow his rules was free to leave. “But if you stay here, you have to play by my rules and you have to play with heart and guts,” he said. No one left.

“I could see a Mexican team that had no attitude,” Aguirre said. “It was a team without passion. They were great soccer players, but they had a full stomach. I wanted a team that was hungry. I wanted players who would leave their souls on the field. If his stomach is full, I have no use for him.”

A week after his hiring, Mexico beat the United States in a must-win qualifier at Estadio Azteca.

“Javier’s intensity was contagious,” Vasquez said. As the game wound down, a banner was draped from Azteca’s top deck. “El Gigante No Ha Muerte.” The giant is not dead.

Mexico won four of its final five matches, drawing in the other, and outscored its opponents 9-1. As the World Cup approached, Aguirre’s flame has burned even brighter. He has called for a major overhaul of Mexico’s soccer structure, pushing for a more European approach. He has constantly harped on the lack of focus within Mexican soccer. He has even threatened to bring in a sports psychologist, long taboo in the Mexican game.

“The Mexican player doesn’t work the brain,” he said.

But it was Aguirre’s thought process prior to a 2-0 loss to the U.S. in the second round of the 2002 World Cup that continues to be debated by El Tri fans.

“I’m still paying consequences,” Aguirre told reporters, referring to his tactical mistake in changing Mexico’s line-up for the U.S. match.

“On a personal level, it frees you,” Aguirre said of taking responsibility for the mistake. “Holding onto a lie leads nowhere and I still pay the consequences for my error (in 2002).

“It feels bad when you make a mistake. And your country, because of your fault, because it’s yours, is dropped out of a World Cup.”

Aguirre turned down a four-year contract offer from the FMF to remain as Mexico’s coach. Instead he took over Osasuna, a Basque club in La Liga that had never won a national trophy in its 82-year existence. Aguirre led the club to the semifinals of the Spanish Cup in his first season. By his third season, Osasuna had reached the cup final and qualified for the UEFA Champions League for the first time. He moved on to Atletico Madrid, which he also guided into the Champions League.

With Mexico again on the verge of not qualifying for a World Cup, the FMF hired Aguirre in April 2009 to lead El Tri, replacing former England coach Sven-Göran Eriksson.

“I am not a savior,” he told reporters at a press conference announcing his hiring. “My aim is that we regain our identity and convince people that we can achieve this together.”

Three months later Aguirre led Mexico to a Gold Cup title and its first victory against the U.S. outside of Mexico since 1999. Earlier in the tournament, he was ejected for kicking Panama player Ricardo Phillips during play along the sideline. Phillips, in return, pushed Aguirre and was also ejected.

After a three-match suspension, Aguirre was back on the El Tri sideline, once again pulling off the seemingly impossible, securing a spot in the 2010 World Cup for Mexico.

The 2010 tournament, however, would end in a similar manner to the 2002 debacle, Aguirre coming under widespread criticism for starting forward Guillermo Franco, who at the time did not have a club, instead of rising Manchester United star Javier Hernández, a fan favorite known as Chicharito. Mexico was eliminated with a 3-1 loss to Argentina in the Round of 16.

After South Africa, Aguirre did stints with Real Zaragoza and Espanyol in La Liga, coached Japan and Egypt’s national teams. He had just rescued Mallorca from relegation in La Liga and then led the club to the Copa del Rey final when the FMF called a third time in July 2024.

Believing Mexico’s 1986 World Cup success was largely the result of a year-long national team training camp, Aguirre convinced the owners of Liga MX’s 18 first division teams to release domestic-based El Tri players for an extended pre-World Cup training camp beginning May 6.

By the end of May, Mexico’s European-based players had also joined the camp at Centro de Alto Rendimiento, the national training center, recently renovated at the cost of $23 million, on Mexico City’s outskirts.

Aguirre’s plan has come under criticism, with Ricardo La Volpe, who led Mexico to the 2006 World Cup’s Round of 16, among its chief critics.

“This is a project, not a whim,” Aguirre said. “It’s a project to try and make this a great World Cup.”

His critics by now should have realized Aguirre, the survivor, the dreamer, the savior, the fighter, isn’t about to start backing down.

In November 2024, five months into his third stint as Mexico’s national team coach, Aguirre was hit on the top of the head by a full can of beer thrown by a fan as the final whistle blew on a loss to Honduras in San Pedro Sula.

Aguirre, the top of his head and the side of his face covered in blood, didn’t react as he continued toward the Honduras coach, shaking his rival’s hand as if he was determined not to give the perpetrator the satisfaction of acknowledging the wound.

Afterward Aguirre brushed off the incident.

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing, it’s football.”

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