Mexico City — Toluca will try to emulate America as the only teams to get a third championship in short tournaments in Mexico in the Clausura tournament, which starts today with atypical conditions due to the 2026 World Cup.
Hoy Friday January 9 starts the tournament with three games: Mazatlán receives Juárez; Puebla travels to Guadalajara to face Atlasand the America and Tijuana They face each other in the border city.
Los Red Devilsdirected by the Argentine Antonio Mohamed, They begin the defense of their crown on Saturday with a visit to Monterrey.
Toluca defeated Tigres in a dramatic final last December to achieve the two-time championship.
“We have every hope, we have the dream of being able to do it (the three-time championship) and we are going to try with everything we have,” said Mohamed. “We will see in the end if it is enough for us, but we are going to try, we are going to try.”
To achieve the mission the Toluca added three players to its squad. One of them is midfielder Sebastián Córdova, who was a bronze medalist in Tokyo 2020 and came from Tigres where he had little prominence in the last tournament.
We are happy with the market we made, and now, we want to continue competing in this tournament to be able to be in that final stage, which is something we propose,” said Mohamed.
What changes will there be this tournament?
To shorten the duration of the tournament ahead of the World Cup, which begins on June 11 at the Azteca stadium, the Mexican soccer leaders approved the elimination of the playoff known as Play In, which was played from the Apertura 2023 tournament to the Apertura 2025.
In addition, the teams agreed to yield to the mexican team in advance to the local league players so they will not be able to play in the league for the title. The players who are chosen by Aguirre must leave their clubs the last week of April to take a week’s vacation and report to training camp on May 4.
To compensate for these possible absences, in the league the teams will be able to play with up to nine foreign players on the field and only two national players. This measure applies equally and does not depend on the number of those selected.
Besides that, Chivas and Monterrey will be affected because they will have to give up their stadiums to FIFA for the World Cup and if they qualify for the league they will have to play in other people’s yards.
Who is the most affected?
Due to its tradition of playing only with Mexican players, Chivas will be the team that will most resent playing the league without selected players because it cannot reinforce its squad with foreigners like the rest will do.
The team, whose coach is the Argentine Gabriel Milito, comes from a tournament in which it was sixth in the classification and reached the quarterfinals.
Although the roster for the World Cup is not known, players such as goalkeeper Raúl Rangel, midfielder Luis Romo and forward Roberto Alvarado have been mentioned repeatedly by national coach Aguirre. They could be joined by striker Armando González, scoring champion of the previous tournament, who has already received his first call to Tri.
Without those four key players, Chivas’ mission to win the title for the first time since the 2017 Clausura tournament would become more difficult.
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Who could challenge Toluca?
The most serious threat to avoid the Red Devils’ three-time championship seems to be the Blue Crosswho fell in the semifinals last tournament, and reinforced their squad with the arrivals of the Argentine Nicolás Palavecino and the Colombian Miguel Borja, both formerly of River Plate.
La Maquina, led by Argentine Nicolás Larcamón, is seeking its first championship since Clausura 2021. However, the recent announcement that Cruz Azul will not play in the Ciudad Universitaria Olympicbut in Puebla, it could affect the support of his fans.
He Americawho lost last year’s Clausura final with Toluca, will fight again in the league, but their aspirations will depend largely on several of their figures recovering their maximum form.
Monterrey and Tigres are the other two teams that have rosters to put them in the discussion for a title.
* By Carlos Rodríguez / AP
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