Evening Telegraph (First Edition)

Can Portales’ record with Dundee earn him place in Mexico side?

ANTONIO Portales is a player with ambition – he wants top six with Dundee and a place in the Mexico squad for the summer’s Copa America.

Though he is yet to turn out for his country, the central defender is determined to do everything he can in dark blue to earn a trip to the USA in June.

Do his performanc­es so far, however, match his ambition?

Tele Sport takes a look. Portales has unfortunat­ely missed more matches than he has played this season.

Two significan­t injuries have derailed his debut European campaign.

The first came on his Premiershi­p bow and before it had really begun.

Portales had made two League Cup appearance­s before lining up against Motherwell on the opening day of the league season.

But it lasted just six minutes before an ankle injury saw him sidelined for the next two months.

His return brought a hard-earned clean sheet at Hibs, followed by another four in the next five games.

But injury struck once more. This time at the start of November as he gave chase to Rangers forward Abdallah Sima.

A hamstring pinged and that was the Mexican out again until February.

An unhappy return saw Celtic put seven past the Dee before a draw with Kilmarnock and then a shut-out against Aberdeen last time out.

So far he’s played 15 times with six wins, five draws and four defeats.

With Portales in the team, Dundee have picked up 17 Premiershi­p points in 13 matches (1.3 per game).

Without him, their 16 games have yielded 19 (1.2 per game).

Across the board defensivel­y there is little difference in the goals conceded with and without the Mexican.

However, two matches against Rangers and Celtic saw 12 goals go in. He played in those games so they shouldn’t be forgotten.

Take out matches against Rangers and Celtic, though, and there is a notable improvemen­t to the team’s defensive performanc­e against the rest of the division.

Without Portales, Dundee conceded 1.5 goals per game (21 conceded in 14 matches).

With Portales in the backline, that number drops significan­tly to 0.8 goals per game (eight in 10 matches).

A simpler stat is to look at the clean sheets this season. Dundee have nine shut-outs in the Premiershi­p this term – Portales was part of six of those.

The Mexican is a key man in Tony Docherty’s defence, no doubt.

Will he be able to force his way into the Mexico squad, though?

He says manager Jaime Lozano is aware of his talent but the Mexicans finished their Nations League campaign this week and there was no call for Portales.

Back in February, Lozano named a massive 60 players in a preliminar­y squad ahead of the two March games.

That was whittled down and only three recognised centre-backs were named in the final squad.

The most-experience­d centre-backs are Cesar Montes of struggling Spanish outfit Almeria and Genoa’s Johan Vasquez.

Five other defenders named in the squad are predominan­tly full-backs.

It appears centre-back is not a position in which Mexico are blessed with talent.

So, if Portales can shine for Dundee between now and the end of the season he might actually have a chance of a surprise call-up.