Liga MX Femenil recap: 2022 Apertura, Week 1

Liga MX Femenil is back, and with México’s debacle in the Concacaf W Championship, not a moment too soon. Of course some teams were missing a good chunk of players with various national teams, but most of them will be back soon enough.

Atlas 1, Tigres UANL 0: Two historically strong teams came in with new coaches, and it was Fabiola Vargas and Atlas getting the win over Carmelina Moscato and Tigres. To be fair to Tigres they were missing a good portion of their squad, but still managed to give Atlas a run for their money and it would not be shocking to see these two teams square off again in the Liguilla.

Santos Laguna 4, Gallos Blancos de Querétaro 3: The wildest match of the weekend as Santos came back to win against Querétaro with two goals in stoppage time. Lia Romero had a brace by the 22nd minute for Santos, bookending a Leidy Ramos goal in the eleventh minute. Barbrha Figueroa scored in stoppage of the first half and Fabiola Santamaria put Querétaro up on a golazo after the break, but Desarae Félix scored in the 90th minute to draw it level on her debut and Alexia Villanueva hit a great goal in the fourth minute of stoppage for the win.

Guadalajara 2, Club Tijuana 1: Despite missing Licha Cervantes, Casandra Montero, Carolina Jaramillo, and Joseline Montoya, Chivas picked up their first win of the season, downing Xolos Femenil 2-1 in Tijuana. For more on what was a fantastic match, check out Melissa Castro’s recap of the match.

Other scores:

América 2, Toluca 1

UNAM Pumas 3, Mazatlán FC 0

Club Atlético de San Luis 3, Monterrey 4

FC Juárez 1, Cruz Azul 2

Necaxa 0, León 2

Pachuca 3, Puebla F.C. 0

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Sub 18 results

Week 1

UNAM Pumas 2, Cruz Azul 0

Pachuca 1, Puebla F.C. 1

Mazatlán FC 2, Club Tijuana 1

Atlas 2, León 1

Necaxa 1, Gallos Blancos de Querétaro 1

Santos Laguna 0, Guadalajara 2

Club Atlético de San Luis 0, Monterrey 4

FC Juárez vs. América - Postponed

Week 2

León 1, Tigres UANL 4

Toluca 0, Necaxa 3

Puebla F.C. 0, FC Juárez 4

Gallos Blancos de Querétaro 1, UNAM Pumas 2

Guadalajara 1, Atlas 0

Cruz Azul 0, Pachuca 1

Monterrey 0, Mazatlán FC 0

Club Tijuana 0, Santos Laguna 0

Week 3

Tigres UANL 4, Guadalajara 3

UNAM Pumas 1, Toluca 2

Pachuca 5, Gallos Blancos de Querétaro 2

América 5, Puebla F.C. 0

Mazatlán FC 1, Club Atlético de San Luis 3

Atlas 3, Club Tijuana 0

Santos Laguna 1, Monterrey 3

FC Juárez 1, Cruz Azul 0

Next week (all records are in W-D-L format, all times as listed):

Saturday, July 16:

Toluca (1-0-1) vs. Pachuca (2-1-0) - 11:00 AM

Gallos Blancos de Querétaro (0-1-2) vs. FC Juárez (2-0-0) - 3:45 PM

Necaxa (1-1-0) vs. UNAM Pumas (2-0-1) - 3:45 PM

Guadalajara (2-0-1) vs. León (0-0-2) - 3:45 PM

Sunday, July 17

Cruz Azul (0-0-3) vs. América (1-0-0) - 10:00 AM

Monterrey (2-1-0) vs. Atlas (2-0-1) - 10:00 AM

Club Tijuana (0-1-2) vs. Tigres UANL (2-0-0) - 11:00 AM

Club Atlético de San Luis (1-0-1) vs. Santos Laguna (0-1-2) - 3:45 PM

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Notes and other things

It’s continental tournament season, which means I’ll be avoiding talking about what went down for México in the Concacaf W Championship as much as possible.

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First, AFCON has been amazing. At the time of writing this Morocco and Zambia have qualified for the 2023 World Cup, and either Cameroon or Nigeria and South Africa or Tunisia will qualify directly, with the losing teams entering a repechaje with Botswana and Senegal to get a chance at the play-in tournament.

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AFCON however may be remembered as the villains of their own tournament however after ruling out Zambian forward Barbara Banda for failing gender eligibility tests.

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Meanwhile CONMEBOL is holding the 2022 Copa América Feminina, where the top three will qualify for the World Cup and two more will qualify for the play-in round. It’s still too early to tell who will emerge from South America with tickets to Australia and New Zealand, but Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela are doing nothing to shed their being cast as the favorites. The matches are available in the Americas through ViX.

Apropos of nothing, enjoy this Deyna Castellanos golazo against Uruguay.

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Finally, UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 is also going on, and at the time of writing only hosts England and Germany had qualified to the knockout stage. UEFA will fill 11 direct slots for the World Cup plus one slot for the play-in round.

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América Femenil is hosting Bayer Leverkusen in a friendly on July 15. The match will be streamed on ViX, and should be an entertaining bout showcasing how two very different teams with different styles match up.

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Canadian journalist Rick Westhead published a damning indictment of Canada Soccer and their handling of several scandals in TSN, one of Canada’s biggest outlets.

This prompted a response by Canada Soccer, which didn’t deny anything in Westhead’s reporting.

This in turn prompted a response from both the Canadian men’s and women’s national teams via the Canadian Soccer Players’ Association.

This one doesn’t seem over by a longshot, and hopefully all involved can come to a resolution that puts the best interests of Canadian soccer and Canadian soccer players first.

If you have something that should be included in this segment, please reach out to me via twitter or email me at golazodelgringo@gmail.com

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Next week (all records are in W-D-L format, all times as listed):

Friday, July 15:

Gallos Blancos de Querétaro (0-0-1) vs. Monterrey (1-0-0) - 5:00 PM - FOX Sports (Mexico),

Saturday, July 16:

Cruz Azul (1-0-0) vs. Tigres UANL (0-0-1) - 12:00 PM - ViX

Guadalajara (1-0-0) vs. Necaxa (0-0-1) - 9:00 PM - FOX Sports (Mexico), Chivas TV, Telemundo Deportes App (United States)

Mazatlán FC (0-0-1) vs. FC Juárez (0-0-1) - 9:00 PM - TVP (Mexico)

Sunday, July 17:

Club Tijuana (0-0-1) vs. Club Atlético de San Luis (0-0-1) - 9:00 PM - FOX Sports (Mexico)

Monday, July 18:

Puebla F.C. (0-0-1) vs. UNAM Pumas (1-0-0) - 3:45 PM - TVC Deportes (Mexico)

Toluca (0-0-1) vs. Pachuca (1-0-0) - 5:00 PM - ViX

León (1-0-0) vs. Atlas (1-0-0) - 5:00 PM - FOX Sports (Mexico)

América (1-0-0) vs. Santos Laguna (1-0-0) - 7:00 PM - ViX