Cardozo confirmed as Chivas Head Coach

Jose Saturnino Cardozo was officially announced as the new head coach of Chivas Guadalajara for the Apertura 2018 season June 12.

This will be Cardozo’s eighth club as a head coach, having already coached the likes of Club Olimpia and Sportivo Luqueño in Paraguay and Queretaro, Toluca, Chiapas, Puebla and Veracruz in Mexico.

The 47-year-old has been coaching since 2006 and is perhaps famously remembered for his deep liguilla run at the helm of Queretaro FC. Cardozo took Los Gallos Blancos to their first-ever semifinals in the 2011 Apertura after beating his new team Chivas and losing to Tigres by a slim 1-0 margin.

After a spell back in his home country of Paraguay, he took on the head coaching position of the club where he is considered by many a hero and an icon, Toluca. In six seasons with the Red club he managed to make the liguilla in four of those tournaments, but never making it past the semifinals.

Cardozo also qualified Toluca to the 2014 CONCACAF Champions League and the 2016 Copa Libertadores, losing in the final to Cruz Azul in the former and being eliminated by Sao Paulo in the Round of 16 in the latter.

In his later spells with Chiapas, Puebla and Veracruz, he failed to make any of those teams click. He managed just nine wins with those three teams combined.

Cardozo is a bonified legend in Mexico, specifically Mexico State, where he spent 10 years as a striker for Deportivo Toluca. He managed to score over 250 goals for Los Diablos Rojos, winning four Liga MX titles and a CONCACAF Champions Cup in the process.

Cardozo is the top goalscorer in Toluca’s history (258), while also being heralded as the top goalscorer in liguillas (49) and having scored the most goals in Liga MX finals (9).

The Paraguayan comes in to replace former coach Matias Almeyda, who was announced to have unofficially left the team on May 31. On June 11, though, it was made official by Chivas.

Almeyda enjoyed the most successful spell that Chivas has been through in the modern era, winning a total of five championships during his tenure and qualifying Chivas for the 2018 FIFA Club World Cup this December in the United Arab Emirates.

Cardozo will have several new players to work with next season after Chivas announced the return of defenders Miguel Ponce and Mario de Luna to the club, as well as the returns of goalkeeper Raúl Gudiño and winger Alex Zendejas. The 12-time champs also signed forward Angel Sepulveda from Morelia and defender Jose Carlos van Rankin from Pumas in the 2018 Liga MX Draft.

Check out highlights of his first Spanish interview with Chivas TV below: