Looking ahead to the last third of the Closure 2022 of the MX League, Pachuca and Tigres appear as the most regular teams and so far they have scored an exceptional tournament, with 25 and 23 points, respectively, out of a possible 30. On the other hand, the look of Pumas has taken a turn until accumulating six games without a victory.
After the conclusion of the Date FIFA March that left the ticket to the World Cup in Qatar confirmed for 29 teams, the league tournaments in the First Division resume. Mexican soccer will live its 12th day starting on Friday, April 1, entering the last third before the Liguilla.
So far, in a direct qualifying position for the Liguilla are Pachuca, tigers, Puebla and Atlas, the first two with positive streaks. Pachuca has five games won in a row and with only one draw and one loss in the entire tournament is the leader of the general classification. On Sunday, the Tuzos will face Santos as a visitor, in a meeting with special dyes for Hidalgo coach Guillermo Almada, since he directed the Laguneros for almost three years and led them to a final.
The Uruguayan coach will meet Santos who were at the bottom of the standings, but have rebounded with three wins and a draw in the last five games under the technical direction of interim coach Eduardo Fentanes, who came to make up for the bad balance that let Peter Caixinhawho only won one of his eight games leading the Torreón team in 2022.
On the other hand, Tigres has eight wins and one draw in its last nine games, the last time it lost was in matchday two against Puebla. Two draws and one loss throughout the campaign put him behind Pachuca. Also on Sunday, at the Universitario stadium, they will receive the Xolos from Tijuana which, with 14 units, occupy the ninth position.
“We don’t have a ceiling, we want to be as high up as possible,” said coach Miguel Herrera after his victory on matchday 11 against Monterrey. Herrera has the felines with the best offense in the tournament with 22 goals, nine of them signed by the French Andre-Pierre Gignacwho is the leader in scoring and will seek to score for the ninth consecutive game.
In an opposite dynamic, Cougars they have come down winless in the last six games, of which they lost three, and find themselves scratching the playoff zone. The university students had placed themselves at the top on days one and two, thrashing their rivals, but little by little their physical condition due to alternating their commitments to MX League with those of Concachampions, competition in which on Tuesday they will face Blue Cross for the first leg semifinals, he has charged them a bill.
“Logically, we have also felt the same thing that you have perceived, in the accumulation of matches and minutes, but it seems illogical to us to say that I focus on one thing and do not do the other, when our responsibility as a team is to face all possible competencies. You can feel the fatigue but that is not going to take away the desire we have as a team, “the Pumas defender said at a press conference on Wednesday, Nicholas Freire.
The Pedregal team will also return coach Andrés Lillini to his bench, sent off on matchday 10 against Cruz Azul.
At the moment, the teams with quotient problems are Necaxa (14), Mazatlán (15), Atlético de San Luis (16), Tijuana (17) and Bravos de Juárez (18). With only two wins so far in the tournament, the Braves are on their way to paying a new economic fine, after having paid 50 million pesos to the Mexican Soccer Federation (FMF) at the end of the 2020-21 season for finishing as antepenultimate in the quotient table.
The directive of Juarez made an important effort adding to Ricardo Ferretti as technical director to leave the relegation zone, although so far it has not been effective.
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