After defeating Necaxa on Saturday night, Tigres earned themselves a ticket to the Quartefinal phase of the Apertura 2022 playoffs. But not before they suffered another passage of play yet again due to their 9th red card of the season. That’s right, their 9th suspension in 18 matches played. In other words, a Tigres player gets suspended once every two matches. Pretty wreckless, huh? Tigres are by far the least disciplined team of the season and have been lucky it hasn’t cost them more than it actually has.
In their 17 regular season matches, Herrera and company compiled a whopping 8 red cards. Out of those 8 reds, 6 were direct red and 2 came from double yellows in the same match. As if that wasn’t enough, 20 minutes into their first post-season match against Necaxa, they got another direct red (7th of the season - 9th overall) to continue their indisciplined trend. The closest clubs to them in the regular season were León and Toluca (both with 6 reds). That is an alarming stat.
Interestingly enough. one of their 8 regular season red cards came in Matchday 7 back in August when they visited Pachuca, their QF rival tonight. That match ultimately ended in a 2-0 defeat for the UANL club. Another early red in that one when Jesús Angulo stuck his cleats into Aviles Hurtado’s ankle. In the replay, it appeared to be accidental, but was wreckless nonetheless and was shown a red in barely the 12th minute of the match. From that point on, Tigres were held in check and managed to get nothing going.
Surprisingly, the San Nicolás-based club only lost one more game in which they were shown a red. That was their 2-1 loss to Puebla just under a month ago. Mazatlán, FC Juárez, Querétaro, Santos, and recently Necaxa all succumbed to Tigres despite having a man-advantage.
Tigres must be on their best behavior from here on out, as these remaining clubs will not give up a single inch, and we all know that a man less on the pitch means a lot more than just an inch. These high pressure situations make every action and inch count on the pitch, and you can’t afford to be giving other clubs handicaps over you and expect to consistently come up on the winning side, despite the fact they have up to this point.
In what is potentially the most attractive and closest series out of the four QF, Tigres host Pachuca tonight in the first leg of their series, with kickoff slated at 10:06 pm ET / 9:06 pm CT / 7:06 pm PT.