Mexico's Luis Romo: Midfield battler "here to fight for gold"

Since making his first-division debut in Mexican football just three years ago, late-bloomer Luis Romo's career has shot straight up into the stratosphere. At 26, he just won a Liga MX title with club side Cruz Azul and was voted the league's top defensive midfielder. Now he's just one game away from challenging for an Olympic medal with his national team at these Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

"We're so excited about it and it's a very close goal [a place in a bronze-medal match], with a good chance of happening. And we're going to battle to achieve it," he told Tokyo2020. Just hours before the make-or-break match against the Koreans, the Mexican holding midfielder spoke about his Olympic experience so far and what it would mean to emulate the Mexican exploits of the 2012 Games, where his country won a first-ever gold medal in football.

Tokyo2020: Luis, how have your Olympic Games been thus far?

Luis Romo: I’m enjoying it very much. We had the opportunity to be in the Olympic Village, to hang out with the other athletes and to experience what the Olympic Games are all about. It's something that will mark me for the rest of my life. And I’ll enjoy it even more, of course, if we bring a medal back home.

Your opposition in the quarterfinals is the Republic of Korea. What do you think are the keys to victory?

The key will be to use all of our talent as individuals, to become a very compact team. if we do that, we can be a team with a great deal of unity, a lot of strength and a great desire to win.

If you had to define this Mexico Olympic side in three words, what would they be?

Talent. Togetherness. And family.

You are one of the so-called veterans on this team as an overage [not U-23] player, along with goalkeeper Memo Ochoa and Henry Martin. Do you feel comfortable in this role?

Yes, I do. We're a bit older, although all the lads in the squad have a ton of experience -- they've all played a lot of games. So it's a bit of a level playing field. They are well aware of what they have to do, but of course you have a special role [as a more experienced player], because everyone knows that you’re older, so you always have to set an example on the pitch and always push forward.

So far, you beaten France (4-1) and South Africa (3-0) in the group stage and lost to hosts Japan (1-2). What lessons did you, and the whole team, learn from that defeat?

It was a setback that taught us a lot of lessons. You have to go into the game 100 per cent focused and not waste minutes -- because any mistake you make here will cost you. There’s a lot at stake and all the matches are played at a very high quality. So if you make a mistake and drop your guard a bit, the opposition will take full advantage of it. You have to be one hundred per cent focused.

This season, you were a Liga MX champion and best defensive midfielder in the competition. Would an Olympic medal be the icing on the cake?

Yes, it’d very much be the icing on the cake. And I hope we can win do it!

Have you imagined what it would be like to stand on the podium and have the medal put around your neck?

Yes, I really do visualise myself there, with the medal around my neck, seeing everyone celebrating and imagining how proud I could make my family and the people who have always supported me. And that really drives me to try to win it.

Speaking of Olympic football medals, who can forget the gold medal won by Mexico in 2012? Do you remember where you were back then?

Yes. I do. I enjoyed the 2012 gold-medal game in Querétaro when I was in the youth team [at the club]. I think it [the victory] was something that influenced all the generations that were on the road to achieving the dream of playing in the First Division and playing for the national team. You realise that if you fight for it and you really want it, anything is possible. And now that we have our chance, we are going to try to do it that way.

Do you, and the other players, talk about that London 2012 achievement in the dressing room?

Yes. Before we came here [to Japan] there was a lot of talk about what they had achieved [in London]. But once we got here we wanted to create our own history, to build our own path. And we're very focused on that.

How do you view your team's chances in the battle for the podium?

The team looks good. We've got a very clear objective. We're really focused and we're very determined about what we're going to do, what we have to do. We know we have a lot of quality. This is a very good team with young talents who all have a bright future. We're going to make the most of that and we're going to help the team to achieve our objective.

Our goal is to go through and claim the gold medal. That's the main objective I had when I came here. Maybe we weren't favourites or we still aren't now, but that's what we came here to fight for. We didn't come here for the experience, but to make history once again for Mexico.

To conclude, what is your first memory of an Olympic Games and which was your favourite one?

I think watching Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps win their medals has had a massive impact on my generation. I got to see it when I was 12, 13 years old, and it made a huge impact on me. And, of course, my favourite memory is Oribe Peralta's header. As a Mexican, it's the goal that won you the gold medal, the greatest achievement. So it's a very important memory for me.