Mexico City.- As the old saying goes... the night is darker when the dawn comes. Chivas came from very complicated days, but tonight they showed their pride to move on, as with order and a combative attitude they defeated Cruz Azul by 0-1 at the Azteca Stadium, in their MatchWeek 14 fixture of the Clausura 2022 season, even though they played with a man down for 25 minutes. This victory is pure oxygen for El Rebaño as they try to get to the Playoffs, cause they climbed to tenth place in the standings with 17 points.
The red & whites showed ambition and they almost open the scoreboard at 4'. Gilberto Orozco cleared the ball and put Alexis Vega on a man to man situation with Jurado, but his low right-footed shot was saved by the keeper. La Maquina answered back at 21' with a wide shot by Rafael Baca.
The halftime was coming and el Chiverio had another couple of chances to score. At 40', Alexis passed teh ball to 'Chelo', who was man to man with the goalie, but his powerful right-footed shot flew over; later on, Zaldívar returned the favor to Vega, who sent it into the net with a cross shot, but the ref called offside. In injury time, Alexis got one more opportunity, as he stole the ball, run at full speed and then shot, but Jurado deflected the ball with the tip of his thumb.
In the second half, the blues tried to surprise the away team, but at 51' Angel Romero over-crossed his long-range shot and at 55' 'Wacho' Jimenez got no trouble from Santiago Jimenez's shot. Two minutes later, 'Lalo' Torres pulled the trigger, but one of the backs deflected the ball to the corner. Chivas claimed its fair reward as 'Chicote' Calderon rocked the net with a header that left the goalkeeper standing still.
Jurado stopped Chivas from scoring again at 67' with a two-handed save on a shot by 'Piojo'. At 88', Torres made a hero deflection with his cleets after a crossed ball that Andrade was about to send into the net. Guadalajara's next match will be against Xolos on April 17th at 9 PM (CT) at the Akron Stadium.
Cruz Azul 0-1 Guadalajara
(Cristian Calderon at 57')
Referee: Jorge Antonio Pérez Durán
Azteca Stadium
Lineups:
Cruz Azul: 33 Sebastián Jurado, 4 Julio César Domínguez (24 Juan Escobar at 64' (AM at 65')), 5 Luis Abram (2 Alejandro Mayorga at 45' (AM at 53')), 6 Erik Lira, 7 Uriel Antuna, 9 Ángel Romero, 15 Ignacio Rivero (AM at 72')(10 Rómulo Otero at 81'), 16 Adrián Aldrete, 20 Iván Morales (29 Santiago Jiménez at 45'), 22 Rafael Baca and 23 Pablo Aguilar.
Coach Juan Reynoso.
Guadalajara: 23 Miguel Jiménez, 33 Carlos Cisneros, 21 Hiram Mier, 3 Gilberto Sepúlveda, 53 Gilberto Orozco, 26 Cristian Calderón (16 Miguel Ponce at 85'), 30 Sergio Flores, 19 Jesús Angulo (29 Eduardo Torres at 55'), 25 Roberto Alvarado (AM at 90'+4')(17 Jesús Sánchez at 90'+4'), 9 Ángel Zaldívar (6 César Huerta at 85') and 10 Alexis Vega (EXP at 70').
Coach Ricardo Cadena.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
