Portuguese striker Paulinho’s champion Toluca will defend its title this week against Argentine world champion Ángel Correa’s Tigres UANL in the final of the Apertura tournament that will shake up the map of Mexican soccer.
Toluca will try to confirm its status as the best team of the year in a series that will be difficult to predict, in which the team coached by Argentine Antonio Mohamed will seek to catch Guadalajara as the second most successful team in the league with 12 titles. Tigres, with Correa as their offensive spark plug, will be aiming for a not inconsiderable goal: to reach their ninth championship to tie Cruz Azul in fourth place among the most star-studded teams in the circuit.
Challenging the traditional order
Dona y cambia vidas
Tu donativo brinda terapias, esperanza y un futuro sin límites a niños con discapacidad. Haz la diferencia hoy.
Although the media repeatedly state that the big four in the local tournament are América, Guadalajara, Cruz Azul and Pumas UNAM, the results since 1998 show the growth of Toluca, with eight league titles, Pachuca, with seven, Tigres, with six, and Santos Laguna, with five.
In that time America, with eight of its 16 championships, is the only one to have confirmed its status as a giant.
Pumas has four titles, Guadalajara two and Cruz Azul one.
The trend will be confirmed this week when, if Toluca wins, it will catch up with Guadalajara, a team that only plays with Mexicans.
Chivas had its golden age in the second half of the 20th century, but then went into decline.
The same is the story of Cruz Azul, which lost the final of the 1999 Winter Cup and was defeated in six other title contests after that.
The two best teams of the tournament face each other
Numbers aside, this week’s final will pit the two best teams in the championship against each other.
Toluca topped the standings with the most convincing offense, followed by Tigres, who showed the most secure defense of the tournament, ahead of Toluca, with two more goals conceded.
The first leg will take place in midweek in Monterrey, home of Tigres, who, in addition to confirming their defense as the most reliable, will be out to do damage with an attacking line led by Correa, who is in a great moment of form.
In the quarterfinals and semifinals, Los Diablos suffered the absence of one of their key attacking players, World Cup player Alexis Vega, who was injured.
Without the striker, the team came out ahead and is betting on doing it again.
Seeks to repeat its dominance at home
Toluca will play the decisive match of the series at its home stadium, at an altitude of 2,600 meters above sea level, where it eliminated Tigres in the Clausura semifinal last May, which it will try to repeat.
Whatever the outcome, the final will move the map of Mexican soccer, in which Toluca and Tigres have emerged as powers that, if they were countries, would boast their oil, economy and military might.
With information from EFE
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