Galaxy still alive

At my office we are doing a small pot on the League Cup. Eight of us drew a random team of the eight left in the quarterfinals and in the end the winner get the pot if your draw wins the tournament. Happy to say that I am still in the competition as I drew LA Galaxy, who defeated the current Mexican champions of Toluca 2-1, with the new signing Marco Reus scoring his first goal for the Californians. 

It was all in all a dreadful day for the Mexican sides, who were all eliminated. I watched Inter Miami eliminate Tigres of UANL 2-1. Luis Suarez´s scored both Miami goals on penalty kicks, both called for handball. I personally think they were both very weak calls, specially the second penalty, which came at the end of the match when Tigres were dominating following Angel Correa´s equaliser for the Monterrey side. Not that it was undeserved that Miami won; they had a good first half, but with Tigres´strong second half the match could have gone to either side, and it is a pity it is decided on a penalty kick that should not have been given as it was not a danger situation and the ball hit the player´s arm in a random situation. But in VAR times any handball is defensible, no matter the intention or situation. 

I guess now to support LA Galaxy, who will face Seattle Sounders!

Results in a strange tournament

The 2025 League Cup is happening, and I have been watching some of the matches in a strange tournament that officially is a "friendly" tournament, but the winner qualifies for the CONCACAF Champions Cup, also despite the fact that the tournament is not sponsored by CONCACAF.

The tournament started in 2019 as a confrontation between the MLS and the Liga MX. 18 teams from each league participate and only play teams from the other league, three matches, with three points for a win, two points for a win on penalty kicks (it goes straight to penalty kicks if it ends in a tie), and one point for a tie (so you keep it if you lose on penalty kicks). The top eight teams, four from each league, then progress to play-off quarterfinals.

Yesterday the league stage ended with two top teams, firstly the Mexican champions from Toluca, and secondly Seattle Sounders, who won three straight matches, one a 7-0 destruction of the CONCACAF Champions Cup winners Cruz Azul. Besides Toluca, Pachuca and Tigres the Mexican sides have appeared very weak indeed; mighty America only managed three ties against Real Salt Lake, Minnesota United and Portland Timbers, while other sides than Cruz Azul also suffered big defeats to MLS sides such as Necaxa, Atlas and Santo Laguna. Regarding the latter I watched their 0-4 defeat against an LA Galaxy side with the German veteran star Marco Reus in midfield, and frankly 0-4 was too little in a match where Santos Laguna looked more like a Danish 3rd division side, and on top of that got two well-deserved red cards.

What Santos Laguna showed was perhaps the worst side of Mexican football.

While MLS sides did well overall, there was not much difference between the top four teams, amongst which Messi's Inter Miami ended on second place. In their last match they also proved better than the Mexico City side Pumas UNAM, who may have gone ahead, but then were vastly outplayed by a Miami side with Luis Suarez and Rodrigo de Paul as goalscorers and architects of the goals. I must admit that I have had reserves against Miami, but this was one of the best matches I have seen them play, and are really worth following.

The quarterfinals are in a couple of weeks, and fully replace the league matches in both leagues. All this said, it is more a comparative tournament between two leagues, perhaps more valuable for MLS to show the significant advances that the league is going through. 

A lot of America-Cruz Azul

The two great clubs of Mexico City have met three times in the last 10 days. Firstly, they faced one another home and away in the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF Champions Cup. The first boring 0-0 at America (which was ironically played in Cruz Azul's stadium, which has been taken over by America as the Azteca Stadium is being rebuilt, and Cruz Azul plays at the Olympic Stadium) was replaced by a tense 2nd leg, where the veteran Mexican striker Angel Sepulveda was the star: he scored after only 12 minutes, as well as the victory 2-1 goal in the 85th minute following Alvaro Fidalgo's equalizer for America.

Sepulveda is presently the top goalscorer in the CONCACAF Champions Cup ahead of one Lionel Messi (whose team, Inter Miami, is also in the semifinals, facing Vancouver Whitecaps), and will look to score more as Cruz Azul faces the UANL Tigres in the semifinals.

Yesterday Cruz Azul faced America in the Clausura league. A victory to America could have put them in first spot, while a Blue victory could have put them on second spot. But it ended 0-0, and Toluca, who defeated Atlas 2-3 are now leaders. That said, there are two matches left, and the top 6 teams go into the quarterfinals, and it seems that both America and Cruz Azul will be there (unless they totally mess it up). 

Referee defender

Yesterday I was watching a top match in the Mexican League between Cruz Azul and Toluca. It was an excellent match won by Cruz Azul 3-2 (some excellent goals, specially Cruz Azul's third by Guillermo Matias Fernandez), but the main reason for writing about it was one of the most curious situations I have seen in a football match: the referee saved a goal for Cruz Azul at the score 2-0, when he got in the way for a shot into a completely open goal. You can see it here: 

In the end it had no impact on the result, and after the initial complaints, it seemed most players took the strange incident with humour. The referee´s running may be a bit strange, but it is hard to see that he is much to blame for a very strange situation.