Photo: Manuel Velasquez / Getty Images
For: EFE Updated 03 May 2022, 7: 56 am EDT
Los Pumas UNAM of Mexican soccer traveled to the United States on Monday to face the Seattle Sounders of MLS in the final of the Concacaf Champions League on Wednesday.
Commanded by the Argentine coach Andrés Lillini, the university students showed good spirits, after having defeated Pachuca this Sunday, leader of the Closing tournament 2021
, which gave them the possibility of accessing the playoffs for a ticket to the quarterfinals in the local league.
With a couple of goals from Argentinean Juan Ignacio Dinenno, the Pumas took advantage last Wednesday in the first leg, but then they could not manage the score and were reached with two goals from the Uruguayan Nicolás Lodeiro.
Although she regretted the result, Lillini assured that if the Americans tied as visitors at the Universitario stadium, home of her team, they can beat the Sounders or even and win the series on penalties.
It will be a duel surrounded by expectations; the Sounders has players with craft and a sharp attack with figures like Lodeiro, the American Jordan Morris and the Peruvian Raúl Ruidíaz, but Pumas has had adversity in the tournament and in the local league and is a team with the ability to reinvent itself, in addition to having balance in its lines.
This Monday the team traveled by direct flight; in Seattle he will do a light training and this Tuesday he will finish rehearsing the match schedule , which will elapse before more than 60,000 amateurs.
Pumas won the Concacaf League in 1980, 1982 Y 1989, but lost in the 2005 final against Saprissa of Costa Rica, the last time a Mexican team was beaten in the final.
The Pumas will risk everything in this Wednesday’s duel and only after that will they think in the Clausura reclassification match, in which they will play a ticket to the quarterfinals with Chivas de Guadalajara.
Although Lillini has not disclosed the lineup, it is likely that she will play with Alfredo Talavera; Jesús Rivas, Arturo Ortiz, Nicolás Freire, Efraín Velarde; Favio Álvarez, Leonel López, Higor Meritao, Diogo de Oliveira, Rogerio and Juan Ignacio Dinenno.
The Concacaf champion will represent the zone in thel Club World Cup.
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