Match preview: Santos Laguna vs. Guadalajara

Game: Club Santos Laguna S.A. de C.V. vs. Club Deportivo Guadalajara S.A. de C.V.

Date: Saturday, August 26th

Time: 11:05 p.m. Eastern, 10:05 p.m. Central, 9:05 p.m. local, 8:05 p.m. Pacific, 3:05 a.m. UTC

Venue: Estadio Corona TSM (Torreón, Coah.)

Referees: REF: Oscar Mejía García, AR1: Christian Kiabek Espinosa Zavala, AR2: Jair De Jesús Sosa García, 4TH: Edgar Allan Morales Olvera, VAR: Ismael Rosario López Peñuelas, AVAR: Edgar Magdaleno Castrejon

Television: United States - FS1, FOX Deportes; Mexico - Canal 5 Televisa, TUDN, Azteca 7

Streaming: fuboTV (Subscription), FOX Sports app, ViX (Subscription)

All-time record: Santos holds the all-time record across all competitions, with 33 wins to Chivas’ 25 while the clubs have drawn 24 times. Strictly in Liga MX play, Santos holds a 28-24 advantage while the clubs have drawn 23. Santos leads 4-1 in Copa MX play, and in the old Interliga Santos won one in 2004 and the sides drew one back in 2005. In more recent history, Chivas beat Santos 2-0 on goals from Víctor Guzmán and Fernando Beltrán. In their last match in Torreón, the clubs played to a 1-1 tie in Torreón back on July 16, 2022 with goals from Eduardo “Mudo” Aguirre and Jesús González.

Photo by Agustin Cuevas/Getty Images

Chivas entered the week as superlíder, and have the opportunity to retain that title for another week. In order to do that however, they have to face Santos Laguna in Torreón, a place they haven’t won since 2016.

Santos comes into the match with five points from four games. They lost their opener at home to Querétaro, but won on the road against Puebla before getting a home draw against Atlas and a road draw against Cruz Azul on Sunday. In the Cruz Azul game, Santos battled back after giving up two goals to get the Harold Preciado equalizer in the 63rd minute. Pablo Repetto’s side has grown into games as well as the season, and it will be interesting to see if they can continue that trajectory against a team with the quality of Chivas.

In their four games, Santos has scored five goals and conceded six, with Harold Preciado scoring four of the five. The fifth was a Juan Brunetta game-winning goal against Puebla in the 76th minute of play.

Photo by Simon Barber/Getty Images

Chivas meanwhile have had no such problems, scoring nine goals in their five games while conceding just three. Chivas also hasn’t had one goalscorer emerge as the threat, instead getting two goals each from Yael Padilla and Fernando Beltrán, with Ronaldo Cisneros, Alexis Vega, Juan Brigado, Roberto “Piojo” Alvarado, and Antonio Briseño all chipping in a goal

Manager Veljko Paunović has Chivas running like a well-oiled machine, however they haven’t been without fault. They drew Juárez on the road and it took an 80th minute goal from Padilla to get the win at León, and after being off for three full weeks after their Leagues Cup exit in the group stage, this will be Chivas’ third game in eight days, having also played in Juárez on Friday, August 18 before returning home to host Xolos on Tuesday, August 22.

This should be a good match and one where both clubs can prove that they’re the real deal as the speed of the season picks up.