Cruz Azul, one of the most popular clubs in Mexican soccer, won 1-0 on Thursday as a visitor to Querétaro in the closing of the fifteenth day of the Grita México C22 tournament thanks to a goal from the Paraguayan Pablo Aguilar.
With the victory, Cruz Azul’s “Celestial Machine” reached 24 points to climb from seventh to fourth place, below Pachuca, Tigres UANL and Puebla.
“A very complicated match for us, we were not very focused, but the important thing is that we got the win,” Aguilar told Fox Sports network.
In a game that did not have great emotions, Aguilar scored the winning goal in the 74th minute when he slid into the small area to finish after Julio César Domínguez extended with his head a corner kick sent from the right wing.
The local team came close to scoring in the 94th minute with a shot from Argentina’s Juan Romagnoli that hit the left post of the goal defended by Sebastián Jurado.
“We recognize that we are not at our best, but the team competes. This team has to play better and be higher, hopefully we can maintain that fourth place and climb positions,” said the technical director of Cruz Azul, the Peruvian Juan Reynoso.
On Wednesday, América achieved its fifth consecutive victory by beating León 2-0, a result that led to the resignation of Argentine Ariel Holan as technical director of the defeated team. Atlético de San Luis beat Pumas UNAM 2-0, while Monterrey and champion Atlas tied 0-0.
At the beginning of the day, Guadalajara beat Tijuana 2-1 on Tuesday, Pachuca defeated Puebla 1-0, the same score with which Bravos de Ciudad Juárez beat Toluca and Mazatlán Santos Laguna as a visitor. Meanwhile, Necaxa beat Tigres UANL 2-0.
With these results, Pachuca and Tigres qualified directly for the quarterfinals to seek the title, an instance that is directly accessed by the clubs that occupy the first four places in the general table at the end of the 17 days of the regular season.
The teams that occupy places 5 to 12 advance to the repechage where they will face a single game, and the four winners will be relocated to places 5 to 8, according to their position in the table, to play the quarterfinals.