Last night we saw the last game of week 1 in Liga MX, at least the last game that was set to be played this week. Keep in mind that two matchups from week one were postponed. In any case, champion Pachuca played in front of a sold out Hidalgo stadium against the new-look Puebla squad. Things got ugly rather quickly for Puebla!
There are times when a 5-1 scoreline can be a bit misleading, particularly when there’s a red card or something like this. In this particular situation we have to say that there’s nothing misleading about this 5-1 beat down. Pachuca got out to a 2-0 lead after a Luis Chavez rocket from a free kick, and a Kevin Alvarez scamper on the wing that led to a cross that was sent home by Nico Ibañez. We were 9 minutes into the game when the score was 2-0!
Is Pachuca That Good Or Is Puebla Just Bad?
It looked like a mixture of both last night. Puebla was completely overrun for pretty much the 90 minutes. What was worse for Puebla was the fact that all of the Pachuca subs came into the game wanting to prove themselves. When the game could’ve easily coasted at 3-1 fresh players came in and widened the score. Pachuca seems to be a much deeper team than we maybe anticipated. Particularly because some of the very young players that saw the field came in with a sense of urgency that was maybe unexpected.
As far as Puebla goes there were a couple of key issues. Number one was the fact that Anthony Silva, the Puebla goalkeeper was not on his best day. If he’s not dialed in this team is going to suffer quite a bit. Also, they were missing some key pieces offensively, and that hampered their ability to keep possession and therefore drive Pachuca back a bit. If this continues this team is going to struggle!
Will Pachuca Miss Pocho Guzman?
Chofis Lopez is set to be the natural replacement for Pocho Guzman who made his way to Chivas in this transfer window. If we’re judging him from what we saw yesterday it would seem that Pachuca is going to be just fine. The issue with Chofis throughout his career though has been consistency. It’s never been a talent issue with him. He’s arguably one of the most talented players in Liga MX.
There are certainly good signs around him this season. The goal helps of course, but perhaps the best sign that we saw out of him last night was the fact that he looks in much better shape. When he arrived at Pachuca he had cheeks like Kiko. It’s not our intention to body-shame anyone. Those though are usually signs of a player that’s not fit. In this day and age if you’re not in optimal shape you’re going to struggle on the pitch. It’s like we may be able to see the best from Chofis Lopez this season though, and that can help the team with the loss of Pocho Guzman.
What Can Be Pachuca’s Downfall?
Depth can be a real issue for this team moving forward. We just mentioned that the young players on the squad looked great. As did Aviles Hurtado coming off the bench. However, they were coming into a game that was one sided all the way through. It’s going to be interesting to see how some of these sub players are able to respond when they are put under a bit more pressure. So far so good, but if we had to pick something that could be Pachuca’s undoing it would certainly be the lack of experience on the bench at some key spots!
