Cruz Azul lacks work on the field, assimilating Diego Aguirre’s idea to find solutions in adverse situations, that the reinforcements arrive to finish completing the team, because against Pachuca a large part of the duel was a flat team, lacking in ideas for little more than an hour and he paid dearly for that, because the Tuzos came to Azteca and clearly beat him 1-2.
Yes, the Tuzos are a full-fledged team and La Maquina is one under construction and that was noticeable from minute 10, when the Hidalguenses made it clear that they came to Azteca to propose, that they were not going to be a reactive team but a proactive one.
Little by little Guillermo Almada’s men were taking the ball, finding their passing lanes and getting close to Sebastián Jurado’s goal. Cruz Azul was disoriented, there was no one to give direction to the sky-blue team that began to be overwhelmed in the midfield and cloudy in attack.
Pachuca pressed, forced the division of the ball, and when he took it, he started his own thing again. The Machine only enjoyed some sparks, they were more individual efforts that failed without even becoming a scoring option.
machine overrun
The Tuzos had a couple of warnings, they were even awarded a penalty, but the VAR called the referee Víctor Cáceres and annulled it, the sky-blue people seemed to take a deep breath, but not even that woke up their team. And then came what was expected with the performance of one and the other.
Kevin Álvarez put a cross hanging from the second post, the sky-blue defense lost its marks and only Gustavo Cabral came from behind, the Argentine defender headed at will and made it 1-0 at minute 35.
The Machine did not react, it lacked a revulsive, but above all a plan of attack, something that had a form, the few hints of rebellion were individual attempts that collapsed before the Hidalgo defense.
Even Ibáñez missed the second when alone in front of the goal he threw the ball over the crossbar. But before the break, the Tuzos ⁷ confirmed their dominance. Luis Chávez took the ball, made space for himself and took a strong shot with his left foot, a slight deflection put it further away from Jurado and the 2-0 came in compensation.
Aguirre Settings
Forced to react, Diego Aguirre sent Carlos Rodríguez onto the field, instead of Tabo, he tried to have more presence in midfield, but that didn’t improve his team’s image either, he was still cloudy in attack and suffering in defense.
And almost at game time, Aguirre sent another couple of substitutions, the debut of the Argentine Carlos Rotondi and also that of the Mexican defender Rafael Guerrero.
But no, it was not the night of The Machine, the script did not change. Avilés went like a knife in butter and Jurado avoided the third nail. The only thing that managed to generate the light blue box was after a rebound, when Giménez launched a Chilean half that was covered by goalkeeper Carlos Moreno, who supplied the injured Óscar Ustari in a good way.
Then came a rise in pace, Rotondi was close to making his debut with a goal, but the Argentine’s shot went wide.
La Maquina improved in closing, but it was until the compensation when a penalty signaled by the VAR allowed him to achieve the discount, but the stopwatch ran out. Cruz Azul needs to solve specific situations: reinforcements, and time on the field will give them a better face, the problem is that time is already playing against them.
MGC
