Cruz Azul vs. América: A Rivalry Renewed in the Clausura Tournament of Mexico

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The last time Cruz Azul met América, they scored a historic win. The embarrassing background seems to have no concern for the Brazilian coach Ricardo Ferretti.

“Tuca” Ferretti will try to guide the Machine to a victory against his hated rival America this weekend, to settle that pending account and also take a firm step towards the final phase of the Clausura tournament in Mexico.

“You (the press) ask as if the only team America existed and not. You want to face us and see blood. Yes, we are going to face them, but I don’t see a seven-headed monster,” said Ferretti, in his first tournament with Cruz Azul.

América routed La Máquina 7-0 in the previous tournament, a result that cost Uruguayan coach Diego Aguirre his job.

“We are not going to play the next game thinking about the last game,” Ferretti said. “I was not present to find out what happened, but it doesn’t worry, football gives revenge and there is the possibility of erasing that bad image, because anyone has a bad game.”

Ferretti, one of the two most successful coaches in Mexico with seven league championships, arrived at La Máquina in the middle of the tournament as a replacement for Raúl Gutiérrez.

Since his arrival he managed to get the team out of the bottom of the table and now he has a streak of four games without defeat. The light-blues accumulate 21 points in the eighth step of the standings, which would give them access to the playoffs.

“Our competition is with ourselves to be better every day. We respect all the rivals we face, we cannot belittle some or value others too much”, added the coach.

Las Águilas, led by Argentine Fernando Ortiz, come into the match with a four-game streak without losing and with their 27 points they are in third place, behind Monterrey (34) and Toluca (28).

América comes from achieving a quality victory last weekend against the leader Monterrey and with one more victory, combined with other results, it would virtually tie up a place in the direct league to which only the first four have access.

In other matches: San Luis-Juárez, Necaxa-Puebla, Mazatlán-Tijuana, Atlas-Pachuca, León-Chivas, Pumas-Toluca, Querétaro-Tigres and Monterrey-Santos.