The Mexico coach, Juan Carlos Osorio, is known for carrying a spiral notebook, in which he jots down observations and scribbles his thoughts during games. It has become a symbol of the Colombian’s meticulous planning for his team, one of the strongest line-ups Mexico has ever brought to the World Cup.



All the prep work paid off on Sunday, when Mexico opened their tournament with a stunning 1-0 defeat of Germany, the reigning world champions. It was the first time the Europeans had lost their World Cup opener since 1982.

The win will no doubt go down as one of Mexican football’s greatest moments. Following a run of stinging defeats that booted Mexico from six consecutive World Cups in the last 16, the team has slowly been building a stable of victories. First there was the under-17 world championship title in 2005, which was repeated in 2011 and then, of course, the gold medal for Mexico at the 2012 Olympics when they beat a Brazil team featuring Neymar.



The entire country is now hoping the triumph over Germany will be the opening salvo to its best performance yet in a World Cup, and the improvements start at the top.

Osorio, who paced back and forth throughout the game, while his German counterpart Joachim Löw spent most of the time hanging back on the bench, has been harshly criticized in Mexico for his coaching style. One recurrent complaint has been his constant tinkering with the squad: he has named 48 different line-ups in the 48 games he has coached so far. But the naysayers were proved wrong on Sunday after he found the perfect formula – a 4-4-2 that did a lot of damage to Germany from the wings.



The win was not improvised. Osorio is a fastidious coach who studied how he could hurt Germany with surprise attacks and speedy transitions, techniques that are not typical for Mexico but are evidence of the coach’s influence over the players. “We had designed a plan,” Osorio said at the press conference following the match. “But the idea always was to have two fast players on the sides. In the first-half we defended well in the middle third of the field and went out fast.”



Andrés Guardado and Héctor Herrera illustrated Mexico’s ability to outsmart Germany’s top players. They pressed forward in midfield when they had to and managed to overwhelm Sami Khedira, who was part of the team that won the World Cup four years ago. Khedira had no one to help him neutralize Mexico after Toni Kroos, who is a natural passer, proved he was not up to the task of defending Mexico’s breaks through the centre of the field. The result was Hirving “Chucky” Lozano’s goal, a perfect portrait of the entire game: Mexico cut through the German defence with an economy of movement and Lozano’s shot was too good for Manuel Neuer.

In the second-half Mexico were able to hold on due to Osorio’s decision to mount a line of strong defenders, by introducing Edson Álvarez and the veteran Rafael Márquez, who became only the third player in history to participate in five consecutive World Cups. (This despite his recent brush with scandal after the US Treasury Department named him as an associate of a wanted drug trafficker, allegations he denies.) Mexico’s technique, speed and concentration then held them over for the remainder of the game.



The win was also a demonstration of the talents of a new generation of Mexican stars, nine of whom have played on top European teams. The former Arsenal player Carlos Vela, for example, gave Mexico the touch of creativity they needed during his 60 minutes on the field. Vela played like a False 9, moving between the lines and providing incisive passes for the forwards. Indeed, one of those passes helped set-up Lozano’s winner. But it wasn’t just the players with European experience who shone. The entire team operated like a living organism, one that knew how to read the game quickly and adapt to outmaneuver the Germans.



Now Mexico and Osorio will be looking towards their remaining group games, against South Korea and Sweden. The key will be to see if Osorio’s meticulous planning results in sustained success rather than one-off results like the Germany victory.

After months of constant criticism from the Mexican media, Osorio received praise on Sunday on social media as elated fans cheered the victory. He has tried to instill in his troops not just attention to detail but self-confidence that can carry them forward on the world stage. To emphasize the point he wore a t-shirt to the pre-game press conference with an inspirational message for El Tri: “Play for the love of winning, not for the fear of losing.”