Liga MX Clausura Week 6: León thump América, Necaxa and Chivas play a thriller

Here are your five conclusions from the sixth week of play in the 2019 Liga MX Clausura.

Chelis makes winning debut with Puebla

The famous and always controversial Jose Luis Sanchez Sola aka “El Chelis” was on the news again this week. After being hired as manager of Puebla for the fourth time in his career, his former team, Las Vegas Lights of the USL, had some not very kind words to say about their former manager.

Chelis, though, shut his haters up in his first game back with La Franja, leading his team to only their second victory of the season with a 2-1 win over Atlas. Puebla’s winning goal was the product of a last minute goal from Matias Alustiza that brought El Chelis to tears at the final whistle.

Querétaro’s nightmare season continues

What a difference a few weeks make. After we were all talking about the excellent job Rafael Puente Jr. had done in bringing Querétaro back to a Liguilla, the Gallos Blancos seemed to have hit a wall. Following six weeks of regular season action, Querétaro are the worst team of this Clausura with six defeats. Their latest collapse happened against Pumas UNAM on Saturday, losing 2-0 at the Estadio Corregidora. Word is that Puente Jr. could be out of a job soon, and the man to replace him could be none other than Jose Manuel “Chepo” de la Torre.

León shock Club América at the Azteca

Club América had an evening to forget, as they were crushed 3-0 by Club León in their first defeat at the Estadio Azteca since March of last year. Credit has to go where credit is due. Coach Ignacio Ambriz has been able to overcome early season injuries to Rubens Sambueza and Pedro Aquino and has his team putting in solid performances against good teams like América and Cruz Azul. Here, they took an early lead thanks to Chivas loanee Jose Juan Macias, and not even Nico Castillo’s introduction in the second half would stop Angel Mena from eventually extending the lead to three goals.

Obviously, it is too early to start overthinking things about this América defeat, and perhaps more than anything, it might be time to start taking this León team seriously, as they currently sit third in the standings with 11 points.

Chivas and Necaxa play to a six goal thriller

Speaking of teams that need to be taken seriously, Necaxa have been one of the pleasant surprises of this 2019 Clausura, and they were involved in a wild one on Saturday against Chivas.

This match had just about everything you can imagine. At its peak, Necaxa missed a penalty that would have put things at 3-1, and instead, it was Chivas who fought back from two goals down to take a 3-2 lead. And just when you thought Chivas were going to snatch all three points in Aguascalientes, in the last kick of the game Leobardo Lopez scored a ridiculous header over Raul Gudiño to earn Necaxa a deserved point.

The point will feel like a win for Los Rayos, who remain one of two undefeated teams left in this Clausura. Coach Guillermo Vazquez seems to be doing an excellent in his first few months with the club, and in particular, his forward Brian Fernandez has had no problem picking up the scoring load left behind by Victor Davila last season. Necaxa look like the real deal.

Nuevo León teams finish the week with top two honors

Will this be the year a team from Nuevo León wins the title once again? It’s looking good if you are a fan of one of the two Monterrey teams. Rayados and Tigres finished the week in the top two respectively after Tigres handled business against Veracruz and Monterrey demolished Lobos BUAP at the Estadio BBVA Bancomer.

For Tigres, it was a little more complicated, needing two goals in the final minutes of the match to seal the deal, but Rayados blew away Lobos BUAP, putting up an outstanding 25 shots against the Puebla outfit to win 4-0. Amongst the scorers for Rayados were Rodolfo Pizarro, Maximiliano Meza and Rogelio Funes Mori.

If you are a betting person, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to put some cents on the side for one of these teams. At the moment, it is a Regio league, while 16 other teams just live in it.