By: Jonny Rico
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What a rare and unusual season we have had in Mexico during this Clausura 2015. Thank god it is coming to an end soon. Only 90 minutes away from closing this season and moving on to first some international tournaments for the Mexican National Team and then a brand new, fresh start in the Apertura 2015.
There really couldn’t be a more fitting end to this atypical season then what we all witnessed in the first leg of the final. Santos Laguna took a 5-0 win to practically seal the final and the championship for itself. But the big scoreline is not what I am referring to as ‘the fitting end to the rare season’. Rather the fashion in which Santos got its big win over Club Queretaro.
Santos will be mentally preparing for the second leg to Not Drop the Trophy in the post match celebrations thanks to a Javier ‘Chuletita’ Orozco… ‘POKER’ (otherwise known as 4-of-a-kind, aka: four goals).
Orozco scoring four goals in the entire playoffs is hard enough to believe – And I only somewhat believe because I watched it happen. But for him to score four goals in one match; well it justifies the title.
Javier has never been regarded as a reliable striker. In his eight years (16 seasons) at Cruz Azul he scored 29 goals. That is an average of 1.8125 goals per season.
He was part of that Cruz Azul side that held a two goal lead and a man advantage in the 88th minute over Club America in the 2013 Clausura Final. The style in which Cruz Azul sinked that season has been an indication of what type of career Orozco has had.
Photo Credit: Club Santos
This season was suppose to be a real struggle for Santos – and for the most part it was – who got rid of the majority of its star players. It is the team in Mexico that bests embodies ‘Money-Ball’. Santos let go of very talented and very expensive players and picked up a few hard-working players.
The signs of a bad season where there when Orozco, 27, was your oldest and most experience player and the guy who would lead this team. And up until this first leg of the final he had not stepped up.
Santos begun the Clausura 2015 season with only two wins in ten matches (three draws and five losses.) Now does that sound like the type of team that should be preparing its championship lap? But in the final seven games of the season it only lost once winning four in a row and tying the other two. Which was enough to see them cling on to the eighth place, and final playoff spot. On the last matchday of the season it needed for Cruz Azul, Tijuana, Monterrey, Toluca and Pumas UNAM all not to win its game that would have sealed its playoff spot and knocked Santos right out.
Queretaro’s presence in the final is just as bizarre. It too only managed two wins in the first ten games of the regular season. By Week 8 of the season Queretaro directors had enough of the manager Ignacio Ambriz and relieved him of his duties. They brought in one of the most successful managers in Mexican league history Victor Manuel Vucetich. But to ever guess that ‘King Midas’ (as Vucetich is known) would place his golden touch on this poor Queretaro side and take them to a final was unfathomable. But King Midas led his team to win six out of the last seven matches and qualify into the playoffs.
In the first 16 games (out of 17) of the regular season Javier Orozco scored zero goals, a pretty normal goal count. It wasn’t until the final matchday of the regular season that Orozco found the net in the 2-2 draw against Puebla. Orozco followed it up by scoring the first goal in the playoffs against Tigres UANL in the first leg of the quarterfinals in what would end up a 1-1 draw.
‘Chuletita’ went scoreless in the other three playoff matches and now erupts with four goals out of nowhere. A truly fitting end to this 2015 Clausura.
