Sorry for the late results

Sorry I have not been able to post in so long, had a problem getting to the library to post and since I was not able to watch any of the games from Sunday, I do not really know the results. But to make it up, at the moment I am watching a streamed game between America and San Luis, with San Luis winning 1-0 at the moment. However, i will not be able to post the second half since its about closing time here so if I am able I will post tomorrow in the morning. Hopefully I can get my work done in time and can get to the library to post about this weeks games. Till next time

The game from Friday and Saturday

This weekend we had only one game on Friday and 5 games on Saturday. Here are the results so far

Estudiantes       0 - 2   Jaguares
Santos             1 - 1  Chivas
Cruz Azul         0 - 1   Monarcas
Querétaro        4 - 0  Pumas UNAM
Atlas                 1 - 1  San Luis
Tigres              5 - 0  Pachuca

To start off i would like to say I was pretty disappointed when I heard the results of the Pumas game and their
unfortunate defeat to Queretaro but then again I am shocked that Queretaro did such a great job to not only win but to score 4 goals on such a high up team. That takes guts and skill.

Now to my game. Tigres vs Pachuca. This was an interesting game for me because before Tigres was just getting by with scoring one goal and winning but for this game they needed to show that they could not only win but dominate the game. And that's exactly what they did. They showed us and everyone who doubted them that they could take the lead and keep on going. To start off the game Hector Mancilla scored the first goal at the 18th minute to give them an early lead. It was soon followed by a goal by Lucas Lobos at the 24th, which was also followed by another goal Héctor Mancilla at the 36th minute reinforcing our lead. Pretty much the full first half was just a domination game for Tigres  because they came ready to take the lead and win this game, and that's exactly how they played.  Then for the second half after a beautiful center from a direct shot on goal, the goalie from Pachuca came out wrong to block the ball but missed and it changed the direction of the ball and lead to an own goal by Segundo Castillo giving Tigres an 4-0 lead. But it did not end there, Tigres kept on the attack and to everyone's suprise Héctor Mancill scored his third goal at the 78th minute to ensure the win with a 5-0 and his first hat trick of the season. But Tigres still did not give up and continued to attack and what should have been a penalty was not given and then Pachuca started to attempt attacks just to avoid the 6th goal. As the final whistle was blown, both the Tigres fans and the team were happy with their win and hopefully we will see more games like this.

I will try to edit this later as I have work to do right now so all add the Santos game as well as the Atlas game later.

Sundays game and News

Like i had said on my last post I was not able to watch the San Luis - Monarcas match but here are the results. San Luis lost 2-3 to Monarcas.  I really wish I had watched this game because what the results show is that San Luis took the lead in the first half but then Monarcas striked back with two goals to take the lead. Then by the second half Monarcas lost a player due to a red card but continued to hold off the lead and ended up scoring a third goal, giving them a great lead. But San Luis didnt give up right away and continued to tie up the game but were unable to and only scored their second goal at the last minute of the game.

In other news, the games should resume like normal next week and then the next makeup game will be the 14th. Also, seeing how Santos has been having troubles these last few games they have decided to bring by the former USA soccer coach Bob Bradley to try and negotiate a potential job. Now I am not sure how that would turn out because Bob Bradley is a good coach but I fell that the language barrier could be a possible set back in him getting the job, but seeing as he had such great success with the national USA soccer team he could be the one to get Santos back on track. I will try to keep a look on things during the week on any more news updates and continue with the next round of results on Friday.

Make up games

Hmm seems that I forgot there were only three scheduled games for this week. If you can remember from my previous post I had said that in the third Jornada a few teams were unable to play each other because they were participating in a different tournament. Well it turned out that they were scheduled to play this weekend and I completely forgot about it. But luckily I was able to watch the first two games that occurred on Friday.

First off we have Tijuana vs Chivas. Now this was going to be an interesting game since Tijuana is currently at risk of getting sent back to the second division due to their lack of wins. So they can into this match determined to win, however Chivas was not going to have that. To start off  Chivas tried to take the lead and around the 39th minute Hector Reynoso scored an incredibly header after receiving a cross from their corner kick. Though his header was meant to be a pass to the far post, it ended up being a goal.  After that goal Chivas seemed to relax a bit and Tijuana  tried to  take advantage of that but were unable to produce much. Tijuana tried and tried but to no avail and Chivas ended up winning 1-0.

The second game was between Jaguares vs Santos. Though i was rooting for Santos to win, I got to admit it turned into a very interesting game. The first half turned out to be a game played in midfield with both teams having few attempts to on goal but with Santos taking the lead with a goal by Jose Cardendas at the 13th minute. But then came the second half, and boy did the game turn up. Jaguares game back ready to take back the game and that's exactly what they did. At the 53rd minute Franco Arizala scored the first goal bringing the game 1-1. After that they scored again at the 56th minute but his time it was Luis Rey who scored. Now that Jaguares was winning they also started to dominate the midfield and keep control of the ball while Santos tried to get themselves together. But Jaguars was not done yet. At the  74th minute Luis Rey scored his second goal bringing the game 3-1 and giving Jaguares an incredibly lead, though this really pissed off Santos and lead them to scoring their second goal thanks to Juan Enriquez. But this was not enough for Santos to take back the game and the when the whistle was blown to signal the end of the game, Jaguares ended up winning 3-2 and giving Jaguares their well deserved three points.

Now there is only one game left for this week but I will be unable to watch it because it is at noon, though I will be sure to post the results of the game between San Luis vs Monarcas. Till tomorrow.

News from Wednesday

Taking advantage of my free time this morning, I found some pretty interesting things going on in the league. In a recent Interview with Cuauhtémoc Blanco, a former America player, he goes on to talk about how he is really disappointed with Reinoso, the coach for America, for having such inconstant results with such a great team. Blanco goes on to talk about how he is really upset about how everything that goes on in the dressing room always winds up in the press, even when dealing with personal or private information.  Though I personally am not a big fan a of America, I do kinda feel bad for the coach because he is always getting bad press and he is having a rough year, mostly because he know that if he doesn't get better results than what he is getting now he will find himself without a job pretty soon.

On another note, Eduardo Herrera from Pumas recently talked with the press himself to clarify that the bad times that Pumas is going through is mostly due to their two injured player still not being able to play and the recent number of players who have been expelled for one game due to them accumulating a red card. Herrera was confident that they would improve in their next couple of games and that he will continue to get better until his teammates can fully recover and get back in the game. Being that Pumas is the current champion, they are a team that can not be counted out just yet and if they do get back on track they could make it towards the finals.

Eduardo Herrera

Hopefully I will be able to post on about the Mexico game on Saturday and then I will continue with the results of the Jornada.

Last results of the Jornada 7

For those of you wondering, here are the results of the games on Sunday. I was only able to watch one so that is the one I will do a bigger coverage on.

Pumas              1 - 2     Cruz Azul

Tijuana            1 - 1     Querétaro

Monarcas         0 - 0     Puebla

And the game I was able to watch  was …. Pumas vs Cruz Azul. Now this is not a big rivalry but it always turns out to be a good game. For a little bit of history, Pumas has suffered most of their loses in their home field to Cruz Azul, with 22 years loses in their entire time playing against each other. While this may not seem like a lot, you got to  keep in mind that they only play each other twice per year and only once in their respective home field, so that  would be like saying for 22 pumas has not beaten Cruz Azul at home. But lets get back to the game. There was some intensity at first with both teams trying to make the first goal. Though at first Pumas almost capitalized off of a bad pass by the defense, Cruz Azul turned up the pace and ended up getting the first goal by Gerardo Flores, with was quickly followed by a goal by Martín Bravo to even out the results. Not much else happened the first half. However during the second half Luis Fuentes ended up receiving a red card resulting in Pumas playing with only ten players. Now Cruz Azul tried taking advantage of their extra player and keep on attacking leading to Adrián Cortés scoring the game winning goal around the 72^nd minute. After that goal Pumas tried to score but came so close near the end of the game with a shot from Treviño but he ended up hitting the pole and the ball bouncing out. After that the game ended and Cruz Azul added another win against pumas.

Hopefully I can watch a couple more games for next week by either streaming them at the library or going out, but I will try to give details on a couple of games.

Jornada 7

Alright, seeing as I was only able to see two of the five game yesterday I will first off give the overall results and then go back and talk about the games.

Pachuca          2 - 0     América

San Luis          2 - 0     Chivas

Monterrey       2 - 0     Santos Laguna

Atlante             2 - 1     Estudiantes Tecos

Atlas                0 - 1     Tigres

First off I will say that these game were pretty entertaining but a lot of the teams recived a lot of yellow and red cards. A total of five player were expelled from the games because they accumulated a red card and thus they will miss the next games.

But to get on track, the first game I was able to see was Monterrey-Santos Laguna. Like I have said before, I will be watching as many Monterrey games as I can since they are the rivals of Tigres and it is always good to keep an eye out on your rival. However this game turned out to be more interesting than I thought, with Monterrey taking the lead in the first half with a goal from Luis Perez but also losing a player due to a red card.

Luis Perez's (number 8) shot on gol giving Monterrey the lead

Then during the second half Santos tried to take advantage of their extra player and made some good attempts but the goalkeeper did a good job of stopping those, and then in a good attack Humberto Suazo ended up scoring off of a cross and put the game 2-0. After that Santos wanted their goal but were unable and thus the game ended.

Next up was San Luis-Chivas. Seeing as Chivas is the leading with the most points, I was certain that they would have beat San Luis but this game turned into a total surprise to me. The first half was filled with attacks by both team but a couple more attempts by San Luis. However as the second half took off San Luis took the lead with a goal by Michael Arroyo Mina, which was quickly followed by Chivas trying to make a comeback. However San Luis did a good job defensively to stop Chivas at just about every attempt and after a great pass to Macnelly Torre, Torre scored the second goal and thus put guaranteed San Luis the victory.

Though I was unable to watch the Atlas-Tigres game, I am happy that they were able to get another win and bring them closer to the first spot. Hopefully I will be able to post tomorrow if not Tuesday about the results of today’s games.

Unfortunate Circumstances

Hmm where to start, well first off I am sorry once again for the late post but it turns out the homeowner canceled his internet subscription and that lead to me losing mine as well. Therefore, since I do not have internet nor cable, since I just moved, I haven’t been able to watch many soccer games other than the ones they show at the bars and the ones I do I can not blog about since I don’t have internet at home. Luckily I found a library a couple of miles away from my house and seeing as its free, thank god, I should be on track with my post for a while. But since I didn’t see many games from last week I would will do this again

Estudiantes     2 - 1     Pachuca

Cruz Azul        2 - 1     Tijuana

Querétaro        1 - 2     Jaguares

Tigres              1 - 0     San Luis – Hell yeah.

América           5 - 2     Atlas

Puebla             2 - 1     Pumas

Chivas             2 - 1     Monterrey

Toluca             2 - 1     Atlante

What I did find out was that Santos vs. Monarcas was canceled because there was a shooting right outside the stadium and the fans plus the players were put on lockdown and told to hid on the lower level of the field and in the changing rooms. Though I still do not know all the details, due to lack of TV and internet I do know that this game will not be rescheduled unfortunately.

As for this Jornada the first game was played on Friday and it turned out to be a tie between Toluca and Jaguares. There are five more games to be played today and three more left for Sunday.

Hopefully, I will be able to get satellite TV or direct TV installed in my house so that I can at least watch the games. But for know I will just be going off of the games I see at the bars and the results I get online.

Changes in the League

I can not believe I am actually saying this but Tigres has just confirmed that Carlos Salcido will officially be a part of the team after he passed his medical exams. He is said to begin training with the rest of the team starting Wednesday. For those who do not know, Salcido is currently on loan form English soccer team Fulham and is also a starter for the Mexican international team. All I can say is that with such a great defender joining the team, I hope to see great things come from the team and hopefully they will be able to win more games and not end up in draws like most of their games.
Another recent event is the new coach that Querétaro just hired, José Saturnino Cardozo. He said in his recent initiation that he is very happy to be able to coach in Mexico, having been a former soccer player for Toluca, and even though Querétaro is still in danger of descending into the second division, he plans on taking them off of the chopping block and even qualifying for a chance to win the Apertura.
Thought it is still quite early in the season to be sure of anything, all I can say is that it looks like the season is still getting better.

Jornada 5

Okay. sorry I did not post after the first game on Friday but I decided to go with the same post style of last time, giving an overall results of all the games. So to start off, the results were
   
     Tijuana vs Puebla        1-1           Pumas vs Santos     1-1
      Atlante vs Queretaro  1-3      Estudiantes vs Atlas      2-0     
     Pachuca vs Toluca       3-0          Tigres  vs America   2-2
     Jaguares vs Cruz Azul 1-1        San Luis vs Monterrey 1-0
      Morelia vs Chivas       1-2

 Now that the results are known I will elaborate on some of the more interesting games.
First off lets talk about the Pumas-Santos games. Though during the first half both teams tried to take the lead, Santos was under a sort of dry spell since they had not been able to score against Pumas in their home field for a long time. However they soon broke that with an incredible goal by Oribe Peralta at the 57th minute. However Pumas was not really happy losing at home so they started taking back control and the last twenty minutes Pumas did everything they could to take back the lead. They did not pull of the win but they got a draw thanks to Eduardo Herrera Aguirre at the 79th minute. After that the game started to get a bit dirty with a foul commit against Carlos Quintero by Marco Palacios after Quintero crashed with the goalkeeper Palacios, Marco's brother, which resulted in Carlos and Marco both getting a yellow card, leading to Marco being kick out of the game for accumulating two yellow cards.After that Santiago Hoyos received a red card for a foul preventing an attempt on goal. Though it is not the result either team wanted, they still received one point each, putting Pumas in the lead with 11pts.

Peralta celebrating with his team after scoring the first goal against Pumas

 Now for the game I wanted to talk about, Tigres vs America. Now since just moved and I am surrounded by nothing but America fans, you can understand why I was unable to post on Saturday. This game started off really good which lead to America scoring an incredible goal at the 16th minute by Christian Benítez. After that America started to play a more defensive game and Tigres decided to take advantage of this and dominate the midfield. By the second half, Tigres came out wanting to take the lead and that is exactly what they did. At the 66th minute, Manciilla took a shot at goal that was deflected by the defense of America which lead to an own goal. After that America tried to come back and ended up missing an incredible shot on goal, which was quickly followed with a goal by Héctor Mancilla at the 83rd minute thanks to a pass by Danilinho making the score 2-1. However the America being the team they are ended up tying the game in the last minutes Renato González. After that not much happened and the game ended. You can just imagine my disappointment when in the last minutes of the game Tigres lost the lead and gained another draw. But for those of you who want to watch the goals I just described, just watch this video.

As for the rest of the week I will be blogging about the end of the Supercopa and the start of the Spanish league.

Overview of the past weeks

Sorry I have not been updating this for a while, but just finished moving and I am still truing to settle in. For those of you wondering I just moved into Mexico because i  plan on going to a couple of games. But still that is no excuse so I will make a quick summary of the recent games that occurred.

                                             Jornada 2
    Cruz Azul   vs Atlas           2-1    Queretaro     vs TIgres       0-0
    Santos        vs Atlamte       3-0    Montererry  vs Tijuana     4-2
    San Luis     vs Estudiantes  2-1    Monarcas    vs Pumas      0-1
     Toluca       vs America      1-1    Puebla          vs Pachuca    2-2
     Chivas       vs Jaguares      2-1                      

                                             Jornada 3             
      America   vs Estudiantes  1-2       Pachuca  vs Cruz Azul   1-0
      Tigres      vs Toluca          2-2        Atlas        vs Queretaro   3-0
      Arlante     vs Puebla         5-1        Pumas    vs Monterrey   2-1

Unfortunately Tijuana, Chivas, Jaguares, Santos, San Luis and Monarcas did not play there matches because some of the teams had conflicting games in the Liga de Campeones and the             World football challenge. They will face off on the 2nd and 3rd of September.

                                             Jornada 4
    Cruz Azul  vs Atlante        2-1       Queretaro  vs Pachuca  2-1
    Santos       vs Tijuana       1-3       Chivas        vs Pumas     0-0
    Monterrey  vs Monarcas  2-0        Toluca       vs Atlas        0-0
    Puebla        vs Juguares    1-2        Estudiantes vs Tigres     0-1

Again another match was put on hold between America and San Luis due to America being in a match between Barcelona in the World Football Challenge. They will face off on the 14th of September.
                                         
And that is all up to now. However, I will be sure to update tomorrow after the game between Monarcas vs Chivas.

Day 3

Sorry for the late post, been kinda busy  thinking of new ways to change up my blog due to a lot of helpful post but that's no excuse to leave my blog without the results of day Three.  First off, Sunday there were a total of three games left for the Jornada, the first of which was Pumas vs San Luis. Seeing as Pumas is the current champion having won last years Clausura 2011, it only makes sense that they would come out strong and show their fans why they where champions. Well, that's exactly what they did because by the 8th minute of the first half, they went ahead and made their first goal which was followed with a second goal at around the 36th minute. After that they pretty much had the game on cruise control.

Pumas celebrating their 2011 Championship

The second game was rather more interesting in between America vs Querétaro. Being that Querétaro is  always an underrated team, they came to the field with high expectations seeing as the coach had recently purchased a couple of new players which he started off in the first half. Unfortunately, around the 28th minute an own goal was scored by Efraín Cortés and that ended up giving America a good head start. But being that their goal was a own goal, America came back and scored themselves an actual goal at the 43rd minute to make the score 2-0. Then during the second half of the game Querétaro tried to make a comeback and the game resulted in a power struggle in midfield. But during the final minutes of the game, Querétaro looked like they wanted at least one goal to go home with and that's exactly what they did. During stoppage time, Franco Niell scored a goal at the 92nd minute to leave the score 2-1. Though Querétaro didn't take home a victory, it still is to early in the season to worry about one loss against a team such as America, a team that has always been a big name in Mexico.

America players celebrating after a goal on Queretaro

The final game between Jaguares vs Monterrey turned out to be a domination game by Monterrey. The first half ended up being pretty exciting seeing as neither team wanted to lose, however Monterrey ended up opening the scoreboard with a goal by Luis Perez at the 15th minute. That goal was soon met with a goal buy Jaguares at the 24th minute by Luis Rey which left the score 1-1. Though both teams tried to take the lead by halftime, they score remained the same up until the last two minutes of the half, a foul was committed in inside the goalie box of Jaguares, giving Monterrey a penalty kick. Luis Perez decided to take the shot and made it, giving Monterrey a 2-1 lead. Wanting to take back the game, Jaguares kept on the offensive trying their hardest to tie up the game, but that did not happen. During the final minutes of the game, Monterrey scored once again around the 88th minute to leave the game 3-1. Jaguares then took the ball and made a direct attack on Monterrey resulting in a corner, but that did not last long because as soon the corner was taken, Monterrey created a counterattack and scored once again, leaving the game 4-1.
Now you may be wondering why a little more attention was put into the game of Jaguares vs Monterrey, well the reason is that Monterrey is the rival of Tigres, making their games all the most interesting. Though they will not play each other till later on in the season, it is always a good idea to look at your rival and see how they are playing to plan ahead for them.I really hope that Tigres continues to improve because I want this rivalry match to be a good one as I plan on going to see it. As for more updates, seeing as the games do not resume till Saturday,  I will try to update this blog with any news or rumors I hear about any team as the season goes on as well as randomly bringing up other tid bits of soccer information going on around the world such as the Copa America Champions Uruguay who beat out Paraguay 3-0 in what turned out to be an incredible game by Uruguay showing us that they have an incredible team. I will also be uploading the results of the World Fútbol Challenge that is currently taking place. That's all, and stick around for what can only be an exciting season in the Mexican Soccer League.

Day 2

So far the the first Jornada, or first match, is pretty much complete with a total of 5 games having taken place on the 23rd.
    To start off Pachuca received Santos and it turned out to be a great show, at least for Santos who ended up showing us how they plan to play this season by taking an astonishing lead of 3-0 by half time and finishing it out with a 4-1 victory. Pachuca will have to start playing a lot better if they want to make it in the top  eight position in the group.
    Afterwords Tijuana faced off against Monarcas. Being that this was Tijuana's first game in the First Division, they came in to show that the new team can play at their level. With an early goal from Santos, they managed to bring in a tie by then end of the first half, leaving the score 1-1. Unfortunately, Santos managed to score a second goal around the 85 minute, giving them three points to start off the season. Seeing as club Tijuana is not much older than 5yo, I would say that this team has a lot of potential to get better seeing as how the managed to move up to the First Division quite quickly.
    Next we have the game between Puebla and Atlas. While not much happened during the first half, at the start of the second half Puebla made an early goal at around the 54th minute of the game and that was the only goal scored during the match. Not much later it was followed by Lucas Silva receiving two yellow cards and resulting in him being the first player to receive a red card this season. The end result was Puebla beating Atlas 1-0.
    At the same time as the the Puebla - Atlas game, Chivas face off against Atlante. With Chivas being a huge team favorite in all of Mexico, they made sure to show that they are one of the beast teams in the league taking a late lead in the second half but winning the encounter 2-0.
    Now we move on to the game you have been waiting for, Tigres vs Cruz Azul. Since the game was played in Tigres' home stadium Estadio Universitario de San Nicolás, Nuevo León, they had the home advantage and came off strong at the start of the of the first half and tried their best to dominate the midfield. However Cruz Azul was able to break through Tigres' defense and take the lead 1-0. After that goal, Tigres was unable to dominate anymore because Cruz Azul had started to attack more and more seeing as they knew they could break through the defense. After a close goal by Cruz Azul in around the 26th minute, Tigres started to get back in rythem and thanks to a bad pass by Gerardo Torrado in the the defensive box, Héctor Mancilla was able to score easily and bring the game into a tie at the 37th minute. By the second half it was clear that Tigres wanted to win and they showed it, but they just lacked the creativity and ability to finish and score, thus the result remaining a tie of 1-1. While Cruz Azul made changes in his players to hold off defensively, Tigres' manager Ricardo Ferretti made no changes to the initial squad because he felt that the players were each doing their job as they were supposed to and he felt making a subsitution would damage the team dynamic.
    If this the Tigres that plans on playing the rest of the season, I only hope that they can continue to hold onto the ball and start creating more plays in order to score. 

First match of the season

Toluca players celebrating after scoring against Estudiantes

For those of you who did not catch last nights game, all that can be said is that if the season follows the example of this game we are in for one exciting season. The game was between Estudiantes and Toluca with the game taking place in Estudiantes home stadium in Guadalajara. The start of the game was a complete domination play by Toluca resembling the same caliber as many European teams.
However as the second half got underway, it seemed that Estudiantes decided to step it up by attacking Toluca as much as they could and eventually scoring an absolutely beautiful goal bringing them back in the game. Unfortunately,  Toluca decided to play it safe and started playing defensively to keep the lead. All  in all, Toluca ended up winning 2-1, but it turned out to be more interesting than what anyone had imagined. All I can say is that if this was just the first match, I can't wait for Tigres to play tonight.

The start of a new season

As many people may know, the start of the Primera Division, the Mexican Soccer league, gets underway on Friday the 23rd. Even though my favorite team Tigres will not be playing till Saturday, I will still be updating my blog as the season gets underway for the Apertura 2011. However this blog will mostly be looking at Tigres and how they are doing in the league as well as a quick look back on there past games and their upcoming matches. Their first match will be against a tough opponent, Cruz Azul. While Cruz Azul is the favorite to win, I believe that this well be a good time for Ricardo "Tuca" Ferretti to show that he has changed this team around and they are in it to win it. With team captain Lucas Lobos and the young defender Torres Nilo, they have a two players that know how to work their positions and with the coaching of Tuca Ferretti, who has also lead teams such as Pumas to championships, one can only hope he can do the same for Tigres.
I will be sure to update this blog as the games go underway tomorrow as I look forward to a fun and exciting season. Lets go Tigres!