The León club took advantage of Puebla’s defensive oversights after a throw-in and a hand in the area to win 2-0 with goals from Ángel Mena and thus advance to the semifinals of the Apertura 2021 tournament. It is the eighth time that León has reached this instance since his promotion in 2012.
‘La fiera’ required the victory in the first leg of the quarterfinals to stay alive in Liga MX, while the Puebla club, drawing or winning, ensured their advancement. But more than trying to keep the score, ‘the fringe’ came out on the court thinking that the best defense is the attack, however, they generated little and their sentence was the carelessness in the true defense.
Pressing the exit and with an intense game that rose to the physical, the Puebla Club wanted to retain the advantage. The momentum of the teams was at the limit so quickly the whistling Jorge Antonio Pérez tried to appease the rude band with the yellow cards, in the first half Gustavo Ferrareis, Lucas Maia and technical director Nicolás Larcamón were warned.
But at minute 25, Larcamón’s good approach suffered a setback after a defensive error by the Puebla team, a hands-off leaked between three defenders and arrived inside the area where Angel Mena was free, who controlled and defined the left for 1- 0, which tied the overall score at two goals per side.
With this emotional blow, the León club began to dominate the match, controlling possession and generating more arrivals to the rival area. After the first 45 minutes, the locals had 63% of the possession, 83% in the accuracy of passes and two shots on goal according to the statistics of Citec and Golstats.
In the second half it did not take long for the third yellow to fall for the Puebla team for Diego de Buen, so one of Larcamón’s priorities was to change his admonitions, who were more limited in the onslaught of the rival, Maia came out and from Good and George Corral and Saúl Vazquez entered.
In addition to the lack of Cristian Tabó, one of the most decisive players of ‘La Franja’, it was the defensive errors that sentenced the strip, near the end a hand was committed in the area, with which Antonio Pérez indicated the penalty Maxima and Mena scored his second goal of the night, making the Puebla mission even more complicated. This represented the Ecuadorian’s fifth goal in Liguillas according to Goals and Figures data and his 53rd goal with the La Fiera shirt in Liga MX.
In this way, León stopped the advance of Puebla, who is living a new era with Larcamón, since he stopped focusing on avoiding relegation, to think about winning the championship. A tournament before they fell to Santos in the semifinals and two ago in the quarterfinals, also to León.
“We made a mistake on a side that unfortunately I think made the Lion grow in enthusiasm and confidence, but until that moment the development of the game had been in the style that we had planned: without getting back and generating situations; and later, we faced a rival of a lot of hierarchy ”, analyzed Nicolás Larcamón.
The León club will face Tigres in the semifinal. In this stage, three of the first four seeds remain during the regular phase and Pumas, which placed tenth First and eliminated the super leader.
“I have footballers who have experience playing in Liguillas, they know that it is important to play the 180 minutes, we would have liked to have a more comfortable result in the first leg but things turned out like this and we are very happy because today against a very tough opponent, very rough, we played a great game and I think we could have widened the gap without a doubt, ”said Ariel Holan, strategist for ‘la Fiera’.
The Argentine was signed in May 2021 and in 23 games he has accumulated 12 victories, five draws and six defeats with a 60% effectiveness, in addition he has already won a trophy with the team, that of the Leagues Cup against Seattle Sounders.
