Tijuana Xolos dominated Liga MX all season.
By: Jonny Rico
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The final game of the 2016 Apertura regular season was played this past Sunday and at the top of the league standings sits one team; Club Tijuana Xolos. The border-town side finished the regular season with a 10-4-3 record and 33 points after 17 regular season matches. Xolos now heads into the league playoffs as the number one seed in search of its second Liga MX title.
Manager Miguel Herrera has transformed the Xolos from one season to the next. A complete night and day difference can be seen with the 2016 Clausura Xolos and this current team that finished two points clear of second place and reigning Liga MX champion Pachuca.
Herrera took over at the helm of Tijuana prior to the start of the 2016 Clausura season in January. He brought in a few players to bolster the squad but kept a majority of the previous squad in tact. Things did not workout for Herrera or his Xolos squad during the first semester of 2016.
Xolos finished the 17-game regular season in 14th place in the 18-team league table with a 3-5-9 record and only 18 points. The Tijuana squad went through the entire season without being able to pick up a win in its home stadium Estadio Caliente.
Following the very disappointing Clausura season, Herrera and the Xolos directors got to work on rebuilding the squad. A total of 11 new faces arrived to Tijuana for the start of the Apertura season while some former key figures at Xolos left. The results following the transformation were almost immediate.
Xolos started winning its home matches, it started to fight and pick up points here and there on the road. By Week 4 of the Apertura season Xolos sat in first place tied on points with Pachuca and America, after Week 5 Xolos continued to sit in the top spot only tied with Pachuca. By Week 6 the first place spot was all Tijuana’s. And except for a two week period during Week 9 and 10 where Tigres caught up and went ahead by a point, Tijuana Xolos never let go of the first place spot.
ONTO THE PLAYOFFS
Now that the regular season is over, Tijuana Xolos will now have to put behind the accomplishment of finishing in first place of the league table and focus on the playoffs which will start next Wednesday and Thursday of this Thanksgiving week.
As the number one seed Tijuana have its biggest rivals Club Leon in the quarterfinals. Leon went unbeaten during the final 10 games of the regular season and sneaked into the 8th place of the table to grab the final playoff ticket.
The Tijuana-Leon rivalry has seen many memorable encounters including several playoff match ups in second and first division. These two teams will be eager to not only continue its own season but to drive the other one out.
DAYRO MORENO FINALLY WINS GOLDEN BOOT
Dayro Moreno wins Liga MX Golden Boot award
On top of the first place honors that Club Tijuana won as a team, it also has the fact that its very own Dayro Moreno has won the Liga MX Golden Boot award for the 2016 Apertura season. The Colombian striker finished the season with 11 goals and is officially the co-championn along with Morelia’s Raul Ruidiaz.
Moreno had finished the previous two seasons in the top 5 of the scoring charts in Liga MX but had never made it all the way to the top. He finished the previous 2015 Clausura season with 8 goals, Tigres’ Andre Pierre-Gignac won that season with 13 goals. In the 2015 Apertura season Moreno finished the season with 12 goals but that tally was short of Gignac’s impressive 15 goals in his debut season. And in the 2015 Clausura season Moreno finished in 4th place with 8 goals, two shy of Veracruz’s Julio Furch who won the Golden Boot that season with 10.
Moreno had set this as a personal goal for many seasons now. It will be a huge relief as well as a confidence booster for him heading into the playoffs where he will look to score even more goals to lead Tijuana to another league title.
