LOS ANGELES — Just when you thought Mexico’s soccer team couldn’t sink any lower, El Tri takes out a shovel and tunnels a little deeper.

The latest excavation project took place Wednesday when Mexico dug itself a hole it may not be able to climb out of in an embarrassing 1-0 Copa América loss to Venezuela before a disappointed pro-Mexican crowd of 72,773 at SoFi Stadium. Drawn into a group with Jamaica, Ecuador and Venezuela, none of which are ranked inside the top 30 in the world, the bare minimum — the minimum — Mexico had to achieve in the tournament was to finish in the top two and advance to the knockout stages.

With Wednesday’s loss, Mexico may not be able to clear even that low bar. If it doesn’t win Sunday’s group-play final against Ecuador, El Tri’s Copa América is over. Venezuela, meanwhile, is on to the next round.

“The situation is clear. We need to win the next game,” midfielder Luis Romo said. “It’s a knockout match.”

With the World Cup returning to Mexico in less than two years, the national team program is in tatters and the panic in the country’s soccer federation is real. It took years of neglect and mismanagement at all levels of Mexican soccer for the national team to fall to this level, so it’s unrealistic to think things can be fixed in 23 months.

But that’s all Mexico has before the World Cup kicks off in Mexico City.

The decline began six years ago in Russia, where the average age of Mexico’s team was just a few months under 30, making it the second-oldest roster in the World Cup. Mexico beat defending champion Germany in its opener, then limped into the round of 16 where it lost to Brazil. But the promised post-tournament rejuvenation of the team never happened, so when Mexico went to Qatar four years later, it once again had the second-oldest team in the World Cup.

And this time it got blitzed, beating only Saudi Arabia en route to its earliest World Cup exit in 44 years. Two years later, it still hasn’t recovered and Mexico’s long-awaited youth movement is nowhere to be found.

If anything, it’s retreated.

Mexico’s U-23 team, which won a bronze medal in the last Olympics, didn’t even qualify for this summer’s Games in Paris. Mexico didn’t qualify for last year’s U-20 World Cup either and won just once in four games in the U-17 tournament. (The women’s team, meanwhile, hasn’t played in a World Cup since 2015 or in an Olympic tournament since 2004. The collapse has been astonishingly complete.)

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