Tigres and León open 2019 Clausura season with lively draw

Andre-Pierre Gignac scored a last-minute penalty as the Frenchman earned Tigres UANL a 2-2 draw at Club León on Saturday night, in their first game of the 2019 Liga MX Clausura.

Javier Aquino gave the visitors the early lead when he profited from some poor positioning from goalkeeper Rodolfo Cota and sent a right footed shot from distance into the back of the net.

León had started stronger though, and they came very close to equalizing when Luis Montes hit the bar from a free kick.

Moments later, a diagonal ball inside the box found Montes, who had his shot saved by Nahuel Guzman. The rebound however fell to Walter Gonzalez to score León's first goal in the post-Mauro Boselli era.

Tigres then dominated after the break and almost retook the lead when Jurgen Damm and Luis Quiñones saw consecutive shots saved by Rodolfo Cota.

In the 65th minute, León almost turned the match on its head when a great play from Yairo Moreno finished with Angel Mena coming very close to giving the hosts the lead.

It looked like León would finish the match as the better team, and they capitalized on their dominance close to the 90th minute when a set-piece near the edge of the box found Yairo Moreno at the far post to score the go-ahead goal.

When the match looked like it was headed to a León win, a penalty was called over a silly foul from Andres Mosquera on Andre-Pierre Gignac. The same striker stepped up and scored to spoil the night for the hosts and earn Ricardo “Tuca” Ferretti’s side a point.