🔴 Former Rangers Boss Pedro Caixinha Out Of A Job Again After Mexican Nightmare 🔴
Pedro Caixinha, the man who once occupied the Ibrox hotseat during one of the more turbulent periods of Rangers’ recent managerial history, finds himself out of work once again after being relieved of his duties at Mexican side FC Juarez, with his short and largely unsuccessful spell in charge of the border club coming to an abrupt end following a chastening 5-1 home defeat to Pumas UNAM. The result left Juarez rooted at the bottom of the Liga MX table having lost all three of their opening fixtures in the new Apertura tournament, and the club’s hierarchy ultimately decided that Caixinha’s time in the dugout had run its course, ending his second full tournament in charge of the Bravos.
For Rangers supporters, Caixinha’s continued presence in the game will inevitably stir mixed memories, given how divisive and ultimately unsuccessful his time at Ibrox proved to be. The Portuguese tactician arrived in Govan back in 2017 with a reputation built largely on his exploits in Mexican football, having previously led Santos Laguna to domestic glory before later taking charge of Cruz Azul. That South and Central American pedigree, allied to his own carefully cultivated image as an intense, detail-obsessed coach, generated genuine excitement among sections of the Rangers support upon his appointment, with many hoping his methods might finally help arrest the club’s struggles to compete consistently with Celtic during that particular period.
Those hopes, however, never translated into sustained success on the pitch. Caixinha’s tenure at Ibrox was characterised by inconsistency, a series of underwhelming results against lesser opposition, and a growing sense of frustration among supporters who felt his tactical approach and man-management style never quite clicked with the demands of Scottish football. His time in charge ultimately proved short-lived, with the Portuguese departing Rangers before completing even a full season and a half at the helm, a spell remembered by most connected with the club as one of the more disappointing chapters in the post-Ibrox-administration rebuilding era.
What has followed since his Ibrox exit, though, tells a rather different and considerably more interesting story, with Caixinha’s career taking him on an extraordinary journey across multiple continents and footballing cultures in the years since he left Scotland behind. His first port of call after Rangers was, in many ways, a natural one, returning to the Mexican football scene where he had previously enjoyed his greatest managerial success. That first post-Rangers role saw him take charge of Cruz Azul, one of Mexican football’s most storied and widely supported institutions, where his methods appeared to find considerably more fertile ground than they ever had in Scotland.
From there, Caixinha’s career took an altogether more unconventional turn, with a move to Saudi Arabian football and a spell in charge of Al Shabab, one of the traditional heavyweights of the Saudi Pro League. That Middle Eastern chapter offered Caixinha the chance to test his methods in an entirely different footballing environment and culture, before he subsequently returned once again to Mexican football, this time taking the reins at Santos Laguna, the very club where his managerial reputation had first been forged during his initial spell in charge there. That second stint at Santos Laguna represented something of a full-circle moment in his coaching journey, returning to the club and country where his career had first flourished after a series of contrasting experiences elsewhere in the world.
The well-travelled nature of Caixinha’s subsequent career has continued to be a defining feature of his post-Rangers story, with his coaching odyssey later taking him to South America, where he took charge of Argentine side Talleres. That spell in Argentine football added yet another distinctive chapter to an already remarkably varied managerial CV, before Caixinha’s travels continued into Brazilian football, with stints in charge of both Red Bull Bragantino and Santos providing further evidence of a coach seemingly always willing to uproot himself in pursuit of his next challenge, regardless of the language, culture, or footballing traditions involved. Few managers in the modern game can claim to have worked across quite as diverse a spread of footballing nations and cultures as Caixinha has managed within the years since his Ibrox exit.
His most recent role, in charge of FC Juarez, began back in December on what was reported to be a one-year contract, representing his fourth distinct spell working in Mexican football across two different clubs, underlining just how closely his coaching career remains tied to that particular footballing nation despite his various adventures elsewhere in the world. Unfortunately for Caixinha, that latest Mexican chapter has ended in considerable disappointment, with his Juarez side managing only a modest return of results across his time in charge before this latest disastrous start to the new Apertura tournament proved to be the final straw for the club’s decision-makers.
The specific numbers behind Caixinha’s Juarez tenure paint a fairly stark picture of underperformance. Across his full time in charge, spanning both the previous Clausura tournament and the opening weeks of the new Apertura campaign, Caixinha’s Juarez side managed just five victories against eleven defeats, with four draws completing an underwhelming overall record from twenty matches at the helm. That run of results left the Chihuahua-based club well short of qualification for Liguilla, the play-off phase that determines the eventual Liga MX champion, during the previous tournament, and results showed little sign of improvement as the new campaign got underway. Three consecutive defeats to open the Apertura tournament, against Puebla, Chivas and finally Pumas, left Juarez bottom of the entire Liga MX table with a goal difference of minus six, a position that ultimately proved untenable for a club and coaching staff already operating under considerable external pressure.
That external pressure was compounded further by an unrelated but nonetheless significant complication affecting the club’s broader operations, with Juarez having begun the new tournament under a transfer sanction that prohibited them from registering any new signings, a restriction that left Caixinha working with a considerably more limited pool of options than he might otherwise have had available to strengthen a struggling squad. That inability to bring in fresh reinforcements during a period when results were already trending in the wrong direction only added to the sense of a project unravelling beyond the point of realistic recovery, with the eventual 5-1 humbling at the hands of Pumas UNAM ultimately proving the moment at which patience from the club’s hierarchy finally ran out entirely.
According to respected Mexican journalist Rene Tovar, whose reporting was widely credited across Mexican football media as among the first to confirm the development, Juarez have now formally parted ways with Caixinha, with an official club statement following shortly afterwards confirming that the employment relationship between the club and the Portuguese coach, along with his accompanying backroom staff, had been brought to an end. Some reports characterised the departure as having been reached by mutual agreement between the two parties rather than a straightforward dismissal, while other outlets framed it in more conventional terms as a sacking prompted directly by results. Regardless of the precise contractual terminology used to describe the exit, the practical outcome remains the same: Caixinha’s time at the helm of FC Juarez has concluded, and the club must now move quickly to identify a new head coach given the demanding schedule that awaits them.
That urgency stems in large part from Juarez’s imminent involvement in the Leagues Cup, the increasingly high-profile summer tournament that pits clubs from Liga MX against opposition from Major League Soccer in the United States and Canada. With the competition’s opening fixtures fast approaching, Juarez have already confirmed that an interim coaching arrangement, led by Salvador Valero, will take temporary charge of first-team affairs as the club prepares to face Minnesota United, with further fixtures against Vancouver Whitecaps and Real Salt Lake also on the horizon during the tournament’s opening phase. That immediate switch to interim management underlines just how swiftly clubs in Mexican football are often required to adapt following a managerial departure, with the compressed nature of the Liga MX calendar leaving little room for a prolonged period of uncertainty in the dugout.
Caixinha’s departure also continues what has become an unusually turbulent period for managerial stability across Liga MX more broadly, with his exit arriving in the same general window as the resignation of Guido Pizarro from his post at Tigres, another of Mexican football’s most prominent and widely supported clubs. That broader context of managerial upheaval across the division speaks to the intensely results-driven and often unforgiving nature of Mexican professional football, where patience with underperforming coaches, even those with genuine pedigree and previous success, tends to run considerably shorter than might be the case in some other footballing cultures around the world.
It is worth reflecting, too, on how Caixinha’s overall body of work in Mexican football compares across his various spells in the country, given the contrasting fortunes he has experienced there. His first stint at Santos Laguna remains, by some distance, the high point of his entire coaching career, delivering domestic silverware and establishing the reputation that would eventually carry him to Ibrox in the first place. His subsequent time at Cruz Azul similarly yielded genuine success, adding further trophies to his collection and reinforcing his standing as a coach capable of getting results within the specific demands of Mexican football. Set against that backdrop, his underwhelming return during this latest spell at Juarez, and indeed his previous struggles during his second stint back at Santos Laguna, paint a picture of a manager whose most productive years may now be firmly behind him, even as his career continues to demonstrate a remarkable and enduring appetite for fresh challenges in new and unfamiliar footballing environments.
Back in Scotland, Caixinha’s Ibrox legacy remains a subject that continues to generate discussion whenever his name resurfaces in the news, as it has done again now following his Juarez exit. Rangers were reported at the time to have backed Caixinha reasonably well in the transfer market during his tenure, a level of financial support that reportedly frustrated his managerial successor Mark Warburton, who felt he had not received a comparable degree of backing during his own time in interim charge before Caixinha’s arrival. That perceived discrepancy in resources made available to different managers has remained a recurring talking point whenever Rangers’ managerial history from that particular era is revisited, adding an additional layer of context to how Caixinha’s spell in Govan is remembered by those who followed the club closely during that period.
Former Rangers midfielder Andy Halliday, reflecting on Caixinha’s time at the club in previous discussions, offered a somewhat more nuanced assessment of the Portuguese’s shortcomings, suggesting that it was ultimately his unfamiliarity with the specific demands and nuances of Scottish football, rather than any lack of tactical acumen or attention to detail, that proved to be his undoing at Ibrox. Halliday noted that Caixinha’s meticulous approach and evident coaching qualities had genuinely impressed players within the dressing room, even as results on the pitch failed to consistently reflect that promise, framing his eventual Rangers exit as more a case of a talented coach struggling to adapt to an unfamiliar footballing culture than a straightforward failure of ability.
That assessment feels particularly relevant when considered alongside Caixinha’s subsequent career path, given how consistently he has continued to find success, or at the very least continued employment, within footballing environments and cultures closer to those in which he first made his name. His struggles in Scotland stand in fairly stark contrast to his achievements during his most successful spells in Mexican football, lending some credibility to the theory that adaptability to specific footballing cultures, rather than pure coaching ability in isolation, may have played a significant role in shaping the differing fortunes he has experienced across his various managerial postings around the world.
It is worth revisiting the specifics of Caixinha’s original Ibrox appointment to fully appreciate just how significant a moment it represented at the time for a Rangers side still working its way back towards full competitiveness following the club’s well-documented financial collapse and subsequent journey back up through the lower tiers of Scottish football. Caixinha arrived at Ibrox in March 2017, taking over from Mark Warburton, whose own reasonably promising start to life as Rangers manager had gradually soured amid a run of poor results and growing dressing room discontent. The appointment of Caixinha, with his exotic managerial CV and reputation for meticulous, almost scientific attention to detail in his coaching methods, was pitched by the club’s hierarchy at the time as a statement of genuine ambition, a signal that Rangers were prepared to look beyond the more conventional pool of British managerial candidates in their search for a coach capable of closing the gap on a dominant Celtic side under Brendan Rodgers.
Early signs during Caixinha’s opening months in charge offered some encouragement, including a memorable Scottish Cup victory over Hibernian that briefly lifted spirits around Ibrox. However, that initial promise never translated into the kind of sustained progress supporters had been hoping for, with a string of disappointing results against Scottish Premiership opposition, including reverses against sides Rangers would have expected to beat comfortably, gradually eroding confidence in his methods. His approach to squad management and communication style also drew criticism from various quarters within the game, with reports at the time suggesting a degree of friction between the new manager and certain established figures within the Rangers dressing room, further complicating his efforts to implement his own tactical philosophy.
By October 2017, with results continuing to disappoint and pressure mounting from all sides, Rangers’ hierarchy made the decision to part ways with Caixinha, bringing his Ibrox tenure to an end after barely seven months in the post. That swift and, in retrospect, somewhat inevitable conclusion to his time in Scotland set the tone for how his Rangers chapter would come to be remembered: a bold, ambitious appointment that ultimately failed to deliver anything close to the transformation many supporters had hoped for when his arrival was first announced.
The financial backing Caixinha received during his brief spell in charge remains a notable point of comparison whenever his Ibrox tenure is discussed, particularly given how it contrasted with the experience of his predecessor. Warburton had operated with what was widely reported to be a considerably tighter transfer budget during his own time in interim charge and subsequently as full-time manager, and his public frustration at seeing Caixinha afforded greater resources to reshape the Rangers squad became a recurring talking point in the aftermath of both managers’ respective Ibrox departures. That perceived inequity in resourcing has continued to colour discussion of both managerial reigns in the years since, offering a useful reminder of just how significantly financial backing, or the perceived lack of it, can shape a manager’s prospects and legacy at a football club, quite apart from any assessment of pure coaching ability.
Looking beyond the specifics of his Rangers tenure, Caixinha’s broader career trajectory since leaving Scotland offers a fascinating case study in the modern globalised nature of football management, where coaches increasingly find themselves crossing continents and cultures in pursuit of opportunities, sometimes with considerably more success in some environments than others. Few managers of his generation can claim to have worked across quite as varied a spread of footballing nations, spanning Portugal, Scotland, Mexico across four separate spells, Saudi Arabia, Argentina and Brazil, each presenting entirely different tactical cultures, language barriers, and expectations regarding results and playing style. That willingness to repeatedly uproot himself and adapt to new environments speaks to a genuine restlessness and ambition that has defined Caixinha’s post-Rangers career, even as the underlying results across those various postings have proven considerably more mixed than his early managerial promise might once have suggested.
For those Rangers supporters who followed his time at Ibrox closely, news of his latest managerial setback in Mexico will likely be met with a mixture of reactions, ranging from simple indifference given the passage of time since his departure, through to a degree of wry recognition that the pattern of promising starts followed by eventual underperformance that characterised his Scottish tenure has, to some extent, continued to follow him across his subsequent career. Whether Caixinha’s next role, wherever it may end up being, finally delivers the kind of sustained success that has largely eluded him since his most productive Mexican spells earlier in his career remains to be seen, but based on his track record to date, few would bet against him finding fresh employment relatively swiftly, even after this latest disappointing chapter in Chihuahua.
As things stand, Caixinha now finds himself facing a familiar situation, searching for his next opportunity having seen yet another managerial project come to a premature end. Given his extensive track record of rarely remaining unemployed for particularly long periods, and the sheer breadth of footballing cultures and countries in which he has previously worked, speculation will inevitably begin regarding exactly where his next destination might be, whether that means yet another return to familiar territory in Mexican football, a fresh venture into an entirely new footballing environment, or potentially even a reunion with one of the several clubs he has previously represented across his well-travelled and eventful coaching career. For now, though, all that can be said with certainty is that Pedro Caixinha’s remarkable managerial odyssey, having taken him from Portugal through Scotland, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Argentina and Brazil, has added yet another chapter, and that his search for a next job is already firmly underway.
