With an estimated 650 million dollars at stake, Mexico’s upcoming World Soccer Cup qualifiers against New Zealand on November 13 and 19 represent the national side’s most significant games in decades.

Some 50,000 Mexico fans are expected to attend the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, providing their team qualifies, while enormous amounts of revenue generated from merchandise and advertising are also in the balance. Mexican bar owners will be praying harder than even the most dedicated fans for a favorable outcome, as they stand to win or lose small fortunes in beer sales depending on El Tri’s participation in the summer tournament.

Optimism reigned little over a year ago, when Mexico’s national soccer team beat Brazil to win gold in the London 2012 Olympic Games, and not even the most pessimistic supporters would have feared that their side might not even reach the next World Cup. Fewer still would have predicted that one of the most important games in Mexico’s history would come against such inauspicious opposition as New Zealand.

But Mexico has endured a truly torrid 2013, changing coaches three times and failing to win automatic qualification for the World Cup in a group that it should have dominated. Instead, Mexico scraped through into an additional playoff round, courtesy of arch rival the United States pulling off a dramatic late win against Panama last month.

Now Mexico must overcome the Kiwis in a double-header which begins at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City on Wednesday, November 13 at 2:30 p.m. and concludes in Wellington on Wednesday, November 20 (the game kicks off at midnight on Tuesday, November 19, Mexican time).

Having just won the Clausura 2013 championship with Club America, Miguel Herrera is the latest coach to be tasked with ensuring Mexico qualifies for the World Cup. Herrera has decided to base the team on his successful Club America side, controversially deciding to leave star players like Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez and Giovani Dos Santos out of the squad, as he feels they would have suffered from extreme jetlag as a result of traveling all the way from their Europe-based clubs to Mexico and then on to New Zealand.