Posted by Enrique Vega

JOHANNESBURG -- "Keep your heads up, you are not thieves," Javier Aguirre said to his players on Sunday night after Mexico was eliminated in the round of 16 by Argentina. But nobody listened to him. On Monday, the team left the country through the back door.

On Monday morning, Aguirre's words were gone with the wind because nobody in Johannesburg knew if El Tri had already left or were still in the Thaba Ya Batswana Hotel.

"I don't know anything yet, they are dining right now," was the last thing we heard from the team's spokesman, at 1 a.m. local time. He also promised to keep us informed when Aguirre or Nestor Torre provided a schedule.

By Monday morning, nobody was answering. The cell phones were dead and the Mexican reporters had nothing.

By noon, hotel personnel told us that some players left on a bus at 8 a.m. and others left on their own.

The FutMex authorities were not answering calls and hotel personnel identified Cuauhtémoc Blanco as one of the players who left; according to reports, he was the only one who had checked in at the airport.

The rest of the players arrived at the airport through the back door without remembering the coach's words: "Keep your heads up, you are not thieves."

Nobody knows where the players flew to, because they did not want the Mexican fans to be awaiting their arrival. Some will fly directly to Europe, but it was not informed who was returning to Mexico nor when.

In regard to Aguirre, nobody knew where he was; hotel employees said there were still some bags in the hotel, but they were all unnamed.