the pass of Atlas to the final of the tournament Closure 2022 It was an explosion of minutes accumulated in 45 minutes. The red and black got the ticket to the last meeting of Mexican soccer by a global score of 5-4 and with an important cushion after having won 3-0 in the stadium Jaliscohowever, during the game back in the university stadium they were eliminated until the 99th minute.
With the obligation to win the game by a difference of three goals, Miguel Herrera decided to line up his Tigres with a combo of four attackers: André-Pierre Gignac, Carlos González, Luis Quiñones and Yeferson Soteldo, while Diego Cocca repeated the lineup with the one he won at home days before, forming a line of five defenders, three midfielders and two forwards.
Despite these stoppages, the first half in El Volcán had more dangerous chances for Atlas in search of a fourth goal. In a couple of counterattacks, the red and blacks had the opportunity to go to the front via Julio César Furch or Julián Quiñones.
Atlas was not very insistent towards Nahuel Guzmán’s frame, but every time he took the ball it was outlined towards a one-on-one. In this way, in the last seconds of the first half, there was a play down the left wing in which Luis Reyes sent a cross and Julián Quiñones took advantage of his speed to gain possession of the defense and define the 0-4. A tigers He had 45 minutes left to score four goals.
For the start of the second part, Miguel Herrera decided to make room for the French attacker Florian Thauvin, which began with the series of particular events of this semifinal. With Thauvin on the field, the Tigers had nine players not trained in Mexico (NFM, by its acronym in the registry before the MX League), which is considered illegal within the official regulations.
“Within the 11 starting players, there can only be up to eight NFM players,” indicates the Liga MX regulations. But for 42 minutes, Tigres played with a total of nine: Nahuel Guzmán, Guido Pizarro, Igor Lichnovsky, Carioca, Yeferson Soteldo, André-Pierre Gignac, Carlos González, Luis Quiñones and Florian Thauvin, until Soteldo was replaced by Juan Pablo Vigón. .
The regulatory issue was not an impediment for Tigres to show their maximum performance during the second half. Between minutes 54 and 74, the technique of the franchise’s historic scorer, André-Pierre Gignac, appeared to score a hat-trick, although two of those goals were by way of penalties and tainted by controversy, since one of them had to be reviewed through the VAR by the referee, César Arturo Ramos.
But that did not matter to the Frenchman Gignac, who accurately collected his two options from 11 steps and one more goal from a half volley, getting his first hat-trick since February 29, 2020, when he did it against Pumas in the regular phase.
The 3-1 in El Volcán, which was a 3-4 overall, gave hope to tigers to turn the series around in the last 10 minutes and they were able to do so thanks to a header from Chilean defender Igor Lichnovsky at 80′, with which the stadium exploded and surrendered to his team: the royals had managed the somersault, something that It looked complicated because no one had been able to score four goals against Atlas since Diego Cocca directed them 76 games ago.
Tigres had 10 minutes to close the door with that score of 4-1 (4-4 overall that favors the team with the best position in the table) and return to a final of MX League after three years, but in those last moments Atlas took the opportunity to send balls to the rival area hoping for a chance to score or some chance that could end in a set piece.
The second happened. Julián Quiñones, who was accused of controlling the ball with his hand, sent a cross into the area looking for the red and black captain, Aldo Rocha, but he was shot down from behind by Jesús Angulo at minute 94. The referee César Ramos had doubts and a Once he decided to consult with the VAR to make the decision of the last play of the game, which would define if the pass stayed with Tigres or with Atlas.
Ramos returned to sanction a penalty and completely silence El Volcán. It was the 100th minute after everything that had been lost between the VAR review and the complaints of the Tigres players, in addition to the fact that the goalkeeper of the feline team, Nahuel Guzmán, began to cry inconsolably before everyone’s eyes.
Still, captain Rocha did not lose his concentration and took advantage of his team’s last chance from the 11 steps to achieve a second consecutive final. He scored with 10 minutes of compensation in the second half and cooled the revolutions of the Tigers’ stadium, since now the score of 4-2 dictated a 5-4 aggregate in favor of the Atlas.
After such an abrupt fall, Nahuel Guzmán received a red card for an unsportsmanlike attitude when kicking a ball and edged the captain of tigersGuido Pizarro, to put on his gloves as goalkeeper but only for fractions of a second, because the referee did not give time for more and Atlas advanced to his second final of MX League consecutively after having lifted the title of the opening 2021.
It was not only the defeat for Tigres, but Liga MX announced that it will turn over an investigation of this match to the Disciplinary Commission for the possible improper alignment that its coach ordered with nine NFM. Given this, Miguel Herrera acknowledged: “It was my mistake, a lack of concentration for thinking about the goals, I already had the changes in my head when Hugo Ayala told me that he couldn’t take it anymore because of a blow, I didn’t realize it, 100% responsibility mine”.
After this fluctuation of emotions, Atlas became the third team from Jalisco to repeat First Division finals, after black lions in 1976 and 1977, as well as Chivas in 1983 and 1984; in the last battle, they aspire to also become the third team with a two-time championship in short tournaments, after Cougars Y Lion.