We were going to have two Friday games in LigaMX to kick off the new season. Unfortunately the situation in Sinaloa where Mazatlan is located led to the cancellation of the game between Leon and Mazatlan. Hopefully this is not an issue that keeps popping up throughout the Liga MX tournament. Not because playing soccer is overly important but because the lack of cancellations probably means that things are more or less ok in that region and throughout Mexico as a whole.
In any case, we do have Necaxa vs Atletico San Luis to look forward to this Friday. Without a doubt this is one of the toughest games to pick whenever they play. It’s perhaps made even worse by the fact that they play in the first week of the year. At a point in which we haven’t seen much from either squad. Even though Necaxa was part of the preseason tournament. What can we expect from both squads?
Necaxa Under Andres Lillini
We have to be honest here and say that what we’ve seen from Andres Lillini’s Necaxa squad has not been terrible. The presence of Esquivel in that midfield gives the team a ton of balance. If he keeps putting in those dangerous tackles that we’ve grown accustomed to from him that can be a problem because the team’s going to be down to 10 men often.
From what we saw from Lillini at Pumas we can get a sense for his skills as a motivator. He took a team that was average to finals they probably had no business being in. Motivation though only takes you so far. In the last season with Pumas he proved that he was very tactically limited as a manager. That’s why we maybe don’t have as much faith in him as other people have. Plus, this roster seemingly got worse not better. We’re excited about the young players that he’ll probably give opportunities, but ultimately the team will likely struggle.
Atletico San Luis Is Betting On Continuity & Unknown Signings
Atletico San Luis could be one of those clubs that’s going to surprise people this season. Under Brazilian coach André Jardine the team’s been competitive. This season it seems like they made the effort to get considerably younger. Particularly getting rid of pieces like Rubens Sambueza, and Abel Hernandez. Both of them were still important players but especially in the case of Sambueza he forced the team to play at a slower pace than what Jardine was looking for. That’s probably why he’s leaving the team.
They brought on players like Rodrigo Dourado who came into his own pretty much at the end of last season. This year they’ve also secured the loan of Mateo Klimowicz from Stuttgart and Léo Bonatini from Wolverhampton. Naturally these are not big name signings, but they can provide this team with a breath of fresh air. They are perhaps unknown commodities at this point, but it’s at least a change of peace from what we regularly see in Liga MX.
Prediction & Betting Tips
There’s a very favorable +230 line for the Atletico San Luis win on the road. That’s the one that we’d probably like to take. There’s continuity in San Luis at the helm but not so much within the squad, and that’s what worries us. The safe pick would be the +220 on the tie.
Necaxa didn’t do much to give us the sense that they are a better team than they were last year. Plus we do feel Lillini is a downgrade to Lozano, and that’s going to be clear sooner or later. So the tie or the San Luis win are the options that we would be leaning towards.
