So last weekend Liguilla started.

Monterrey vs America – With the recent passing of ex-rayado, Antonio De Nigris, his brother, Aldo came out and scored the only goal to put Monterrey with the advantage heading into the Azteca this coming Saturday. America has been good playing well lately and started Liguilla with some good motivation from Pardo. We will see if they can pull it off againt a somewhat sentimental Monterrey team. My pick is for the wilas to take it!

Puebla vs Cruz Azul - This one was a fun game. 8 goals total in a 4-4 tie. Borgetti scores a goal to bring some excitement and pull Puebla up before halftime. I even liked his dyed line of hair. Meh, ok, maybe not. Cruz Azul came back and tied it up for a good advantage going back home to Estadio Azul. Cruz Azul is one of my favorites, despite past dissapointment in big games/tourneys. They ended the regular season on fire and have leading goal scorer Emanuel Villa. Jimmy Lozano got 2 goals for the Cementeros. My pick is Cruz Azul takes the next game to advance.

San Luis vs Toluca – Toluca, usually a strong contender has been weak of late. They took a loss in San Luis in the 1st leg. This is a toss up but I think San Luis will take it in a rowdy Nemesio Diaz.

Santos vs Morelia – Santos has been on a high as of late. With a new stadium, a win over Santos from Brazil. Some say Oswaldo is better than Ochoa right now. Santos got the 1st leg win 2-1 over a Morelia team that has been strong all season, with goal scorer Miguel Sabah. I think Santos takes this win and advances.

Saturday July 12
Chivas vs DC United
Atlante vs Dynamo

Sunday July 13
Santos vs New England
Pachuca vs Chivas USA

I will hopefully get to attend the 2 games in Houston, being Atlante and Chivas vs Dynamo. If so, pics will be forthcoming.

As far as these matchups, I would have to say that Santos looks to be the strong team, I would say Chivas also, but they lost Omar. This is all pre-season so its hard to tell what the lineups will be. We may see youth play vs the MLSers, but I’m sure regular starters will be in there as a win is in the plans. MLS is in mid season so there is an advantage for their side, as well as playing only in the USA. I believe the stat is MLS teams have never beat a Mexican team in Mexico.

I also hear that America rejected the opportunity to attend this years tourney. I guess they have better things to do, like a friendly in Austin vs Toluca, where I hope to be as well.

The 1st goal came with an excellent cut back by Edgar Castillo and a back pass to Ludueña who shot a perfectly placed ball in the right corner out of reach for Yosgart Gutierrez. Cruz Azul had control and seemed to be the solid team on the offensive, but Santos stood fast and had a great performance from the Defense.

Truly impressive in the open field was Edgar Castillo, who took 3 or 4 Cruz Azul players and took the ball all the way down the left side to generate an attack on the Cruz Azul side, only for Fernando Arce to send the ball in orbit. Santos had its chances to score plenty more goals in the 2nd half, expecially from Benitez.

Cruz Azul received their goal from a cross and deflection by Jaime Lozano.

A deserved victory in the Global 3-2 by Santos Laguna, Champions of the Clausura 2008 Tournament.

side note: look out for Edgar Castillo, I am a fan, since watching him in the Sub-23 Olympic Qualifying. This guy can run and play just like his cuate Nery Castillo. He has some speed on him and is dangerous on the open field.

Cruz Azul played well even the start of the 2nd half, but Santos came back with more control and more opportunities.

The Santos goal would fall in the 2nd half after a good center pass from Benitez, to a running on Fernando Arce who struck the ball with power and low, and left Yosgar Gutierrez standing as he watched the ball go past him. Nothing he could do. The 2nd was a good run by Benitez on the left side, a cut back and had space to make a hard shot past Gutierrez.

In the end it was a good showing by Cruz Azul, but Santos took advantage and capitalized on the opportunities they had. Now it will be complicated the return leg in La Comarca Lagunera.

After the post game fight that happened between Chiapas and Cruz Azul, we now have the decision from the Fed.

Christian Riveros and Joel Huiqui have been suspended for 1 game. 2 Assistents were also suspended.

Not very harsh, if you ask me, especially since Torrado, Dominquez, Lugo and others were all in the mix. Hopefully this doesnt set a bad precedent for future incidents. Maybe they went lenient, since they may have been too harsh in the last fight that Cruz Azul had with America, when players were suspended for 5 games, if I remember correctly.

Monterrey vs Santos
San Luis vs Cruz Azul

Monterrey took care of Chivas in a game where Chivas came out scoring, but forgot to defend. To me a failure on the part of Efrain Flores and his strategy and has he would say, the first game loss, did them in. Check out the highlights in the Monterrey blog.

Cruz Azul passed as they beat Jaguares 2-1. This was the better game on Saturday. The environment was rainy in DF, and Jaguares came out with the 1st goal, but Cruz Azul ended it with 2. The game ended heated as a fight broke out and Jaguares players went crazy, chasing Cruz Azul players around the field. Cruz Azul apparently were making fun of Jaguares as they were being eliminated toward the end of the game, spitting on Itamar Batista, Gerardo Lugo laughing at them, and Julio Dominguez attacking Balcazar. Lugo did run off like a little baby, Oscar Rojas doesn’t look like a weakling.

On Sunday the games ended up with Santos and San Luis passing their rivals. Santos tied Necaxa and San Luis/Toluca couldn’t score goals, so San Luis passes as they both have better regular season records (San Luis and Santos).

The real test however will be their performance away in Brazil on the 2nd Leg.

In other news, the final 2 games of the Liguilla were played last night as well.

In the first match between Toluca and San Luis, San Luis pulled out a tie to take back to their home stadium. Alfredo Moreno scored the first with a rifling shot past the keeper. It was close to ending with a 1-0 result, until Santiago Fernandez got a very lucky back heal deflection type of a shot that went for the in for the tie.

The second match featured a strong Santos Laguna team play Necaxa in Aguascalientes. Daniel Ludueña made his reappearance know as he shot and scored from a free kick. Rodallega tied it up only to see another final minutes goal by Walter Gimenez. Santos stole the win and showed to be able to withstand the Necaxa attack.

Then Chiapas played Cruz Azul and pulled out a 1-0 win to head start off the Liguilla.

The premier match of the night was Chivas vs Monterrey. Or I thought it would be. I expected a hard fought, evenly matched game. Instead an inexperienced ref made some questionable decisions and Chivas lost 4-1.

Mistakes made were 2 part; The ref and Chivas.

The Referee, Francisco Chacon, made plenty of mistakes. The first on the tackle by the keeper vs Omar Bravo he should have been given a yellow and was not. The match was intense and the foul calling was very irregular. The second was a very hard to make decision but after some tussling on the pitch, Chacon gave the red to Ramon Morales for taping Luis Perez in the face with his boot and Luis acting as if he was given an upper cut. Sure it looked bad, but the physics of the body in the situation they were in resulted in an unintentional lifting of Ramon’s leg toward the face of Luis Perez. The ref should have also taken into account the track record of the Chivas captain, who rarely gets ejected from matches.

It was downhill from there, Chupete won an again, iffy penalty and Jared Borgetti scored 3 goals to lead the Rayados.

Chivas coach, Efrain Flores, made mistakes on the substitutions bringing in more defensive players to little to late. Down to 10 men, then 9 you have to decide to hold off a bit on the attack and start to defend. Sending players up too much is dangerous and Chivas paid for it.

Chivas will have a task in front of them. They will have to win minimum 3-0 to advance on Saturday’s game.

So far in the pre game moments, Monterrey (Ricardo Lavolp) is coming out challenging the Chivas, saying that they can put up a fight. That Chivas will not run all over them. If you remember the goal Humberto Suazo scored on them during their last meeting. If not look it up, its a beauty as he owned the Chivas defense on a brilliant play. Monterrey is definitely coming out confident.

Chivas is coming out cautious. They don’t want to be considered the favorite. They dont want to be overconfident. Despite their last defeat to Monterrey, Chivas does have the advantage in recent matchups only losing once in their last five meetings.

Like I said earlier, this is the match to watch. To be impartial, I would say that Monterrey has a good chance of taking this, but I fear that if they do, they don’t have as good a chance at winning the remaining games to take the title, as Chivas does. Chivas has shown much better consistency. As a fan, I hope Chivas demolishes them.

Necaxa and Atlas tied at 0 goals yesterday and Necaxa advances as well.

So the matchups are as follows:

Liguilla:
Chivas vs. Monterrey
Santos vs. Necaxa
Cruz Azul vs. Jaguares
San Luis vs. Toluca

Chivas vs Monterrey – Will be a fun and interesting match between the super leader Chivas, against an improving Monterrey with the very talented Humberto Suazo. Best match to watch in my opinion.

Santos vs Necaxa – This should be a tough matchup but I see Santos passing through. With Oswaldo in goal, they will be tough on the defensive end and they have proven a very good team all season long.

Cruz Azul vs Jaguares – Cruz Azul has been solid even with missing out on several players. Jaguares has also been very good with the Bautista/Batista duo, plus the heat of Chiapas. This is my 2nd place in the “must watch” category.

San Luis vs Toluca – A very tough and defensive San Luis vs a likewise tough and defensive Toluca team. This is sure to be a closed match up and its hard to pick who will go through. I think Toluca will take it, with Zinha and Sergio Amauri Ponce taking the lead.