🇲🇽🏆 Let's preview the Liga MX quarterfinals!
A series by series look at the Liguilla, which kicks off today.
After a long layoff for the play-in and the Concacaf Champions Cup semifinals that ended up being the longest break Liga MX players will have in 2025, it’s time for the good stuff to begin.
A new Liga MX champion will be crowned on May 25 - or perhaps not if Club América can continue to exert its dominance and win a fourth straight title.
Las Aguilas certainly are among the favorites, but they face a strong challenge from regular season No. 1 Toluca, consistent thorn-in-their-side Cruz Azul and other teams around the league.
Let’s look at each series, highlighting a few reasons why each team could advance from the quarterfinal and picking out an X-Factor, that player who may just be able to make the difference and tilt the balance.
We’ll start with my Getting CONCACAFed Certified Team For Neutrals To Watch™
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Toluca vs. Monterrey
First leg: 9p ET, Wednesday, Estadio BBVA
Second leg: 9p ET, Saturday, Estadio Nemesio Diez
Why Toluca will win: They’ll score more goals.
Toluca is the No. 1 seed for a reason. The reason, mostly, is the assertive attack. The Diablos Rojos averaged nearly 2.5 goals a game, scoring 41 times in 17 games. After a slow start compared to his debut tournament, Paulinho scored a dozen. Alexis Vega added nine, with eight assists to make him the G+A leader.
Pau López, the Spanish goalkeeper acquired on loan after Tiago Volpi abruptly returned to his native Brazil for family reasons, has been fine but not fantastic, and the defense in general has broken at times but not so much that the attack can’t gloss over any mistakes.
That’s not the only reason for concern - even beyond the fact that plenty of fans believe the superlider is cursed to lose after years of the No. 1 coming up short.