Cruz Azul is close to ending his 23-year wait without being a Mexican soccer champion; To complete it this Sunday, he needs to confirm his advantage over Santos in the second leg of the final of the Guard1anes Clausura-2021 tournament at the Azteca stadium.
Last Thursday, Cruz Azul’s ‘La Maquina’ beat Santos’s ‘Guerreros’ 1-0 in the first leg played at the Corona stadium; the goal was made by Luis Romo at minute 71.
“There is nothing resolved, nothing is certain,” said Peruvian Juan Reynoso, technical director of Cruz Azul, after obtaining that minimal advantage. “We have not won anything,” he emphasized.
In her first tournament at the helm of ‘La Maquina’, Reynoso made her the leader of the classification with 41 points and during the competition she set the club’s own record for the most consecutive wins with 12.
At 51 years of age, Reynoso seeks to round off that performance and repeat what he achieved at the age of 27 when as a central defender he was part of the most recent league title achieved by the celestial club in the distant Winter-1997 tournament.
The Inca coach is aware that since then, Cruz Azul has not been able to win the six league finals that he has played.
“We continue to depend on ourselves and they need a goal,” said Reynoso facing the second leg, and also pledged his faith to achieve the long-awaited ninth Cruz Azul crown. “God and the Virgin enlighten us on Sunday.”
– Sharpen your aim –
For their part, the ‘Warriors’ wasted the dominance they established at home in the first minutes of the first leg.
“We took an unfair defeat because we generated the best options,” Uruguayan Guillermo Almada, Santos’ technical director, commented after the defeat. “Cruz Azul found the goal in a fortuitous game”.
Almada regretted that his ‘Warriors’ could not decipher the tactical order presented by their rivals and guaranteed that in the return they will maintain the offensive stance that characterizes them.
“Perhaps as a local Cruz Azul play another type of game, I don’t know, but we have to be much more precise and unbalance in one on one,” Almada considered.
– Thousands for a ticket –
In this match, 25 percent of the 81,070 Azteca stadium seats will be enabled. Tickets went on sale online Wednesday and sold out in about a minute.
Official ticket prices for this final ranged from 500 pesos (about $ 25) to 1,200 pesos (about $ 60).
Later on the resale sites appeared tickets with prices from 10,000 pesos (about $ 500) to 40,000 pesos (about $ 2,000).
The match will start at 8:15 p.m. local time in Mexico City (01:15 GMT on Monday). Cruz Azul is looking for the ninth league title in its history; before it was crowned in the seasons 1968-69, Mexico-1970, 1971-72, 1972-73, 1973-74, 1978-79, 1979-80 and Winter-1997.
Santos is going for his seventh crown to add it to those he won in the Winter-1996, Summer-2001, Clausura-2008, Clausura-2012, Clausura-2015 and Clausura-2018 tournaments. AFP (HN)