It is often said that those who deserve it come to the finals, but Miguel Herrera declared Toluca a “deceiving finalist” because, from his perspective, America must have played against Pachuca for the 2022 Aperture title, which the Tuzos would eventually win by defeating the Red Devils in both legs.
In a certain way, El Piojo “disqualified” Toluca from participating in the Grand Final. He believes that they were too lucky against the Eagles in the semi-finals because they scored the goals in the first leg due to specific mistakes by Guillermo Ochoa along with a bad start and a penalty by Emilio Lara.
“I don’t know if Rayados and Toluca arrived against Pachuca half-confident, just in case Toluca for eliminating America, although frankly it was a bit wrong their because America skipped them in both gameshe was much more dominant and they literally missed a goal,” the Tigres coach told Roberto Gómez Junco.
Why did Tigres fail?
On the way to the title, Pachuca eliminated Tigres in the quarterfinals leaning into a plank position. The Cats were the only ones to resist the reigning Liga MX champions and El Piojo believes they had the ability to eliminate them.
“Tigres and I detected this weakness in Almada’s team it is to get a lot of people together in the sector of the field, we work to give two touches and hit game changes. We should have left the first game with a one or two goal advantage because we had them and didn’t insert it. There (in Pachuca) they scored quickly, we equalized and when we were better they scored on the counterattack. We sinned like innocents, the taste lasted very little and we lacked power again,” he analyzed.
Miguel Herrera smashes Pachuca
Paying tribute to the work of Guillermo Almada, who played three finals in a year and a half, with his first victory in this 2022 Apertura. Piojo Herrera spoke about the virtues of Pachucaincluding his own bet on Mexican talentrecognizing that they can because “they don’t have pressure from others”refers to popular or big.
“Pachuca has a point in its favor, which is to put young people and they don’t care what they say, it helps them not to have such a media team or so much pressure. The young people who invest are of good quality, they don’t give for the sake of giving or because they don’t have money. This Pachuca press you from all sides, they try to steal the opponent’s field and when they retreat, they are very good on the counter-attack,” he said.
“They have an outstanding scorer (Ustari), with a lot of presence and leadership. Two centre-backs (Murillo and Cabral) of very good quality and a centre-forward (Ibáñez) who scored. Two midfielders are children, I had Luis Chávez in Tijuana and his development so far is impressive.”