Liga MX: What Tijuana can learn from Toluca loss

A difficult 3-0 loss to Toluca leaves Tijuana looking for answers on how to turn their Apertura around.

This afternoon, Club Tijuana fell 3 – 0 to Toluca in a game where, despite having the majority of the possession, the Xolos weren’t able to capitalise on their chances. Toluca on the other hand took advantage of three disastrous mistakes from Xolos to gain three valuable points in the Liga mX table.

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For the first goal, Triverio was able to latch on to a Mendoza corner after Tijuana’s goalkeeper, Lajud, found himself in no-man’s land. Caught between the indecision of whether to stick or come out and challenge for the ball, Lajud ended up choosing neither. Instead he advanced to the edge of the six-yard line before seeing the ball float over his head and then planted in the back of the net. Should have done better.

The second goal came shortly after as Antonio Ríos hit a free kick from outside the box just to the right of Lajud who could only manage to push it in to the roof of the net. Another fault of Lajud who’s footwork was all wrong here and he simply didn’t cover enough ground. This is a save you’d expect a keeper of this calibre to make.

Toluca’s third was some simple passing and movement in the middle of the pitch to exploit Tijuana’s defensive frailties:

Tijuana’s back four were in complete disarray here with no concerted effort to play a tight back line or an offside trap. Fuentes is the main culprit as he saw himself drawn to the ball, completely neglecting the space that he was about to vacate to Alexis Vega. By the time he realised his mistake, it was too late and the pace on the ball left the scrambling fullback for dead and he could only watch as the ball hit the back of the net.

Having seen Fuentes step forward, you’d expect the remaining three of the backline to step up and try to spring an impromptu offside trap. Instead, they all remained rooted allowing Toluca’s most simple goal of the night to kill any hopes of a Tijuana comeback.

Week after week now we’re seeing too many men thrown forwards to catch opposition on the counter with a complete disregard for defensive cover if they lose the ball. This disorganisation was also to blame for Muñoz red card in the 64^th minute as he was forced to make a brash challenge after finding himself exposed to a fast counter. This is concerning to say the least for Tijuana as the same massive gaps that were present against León were still showing tonight.

It seems that playing a 4-4-2 with minimal cover from the holding midfielders isn’t working for them and perhaps experimentation with a back 3 with 2 wingbacks may be more beneficial. This system would allow the wide men to continue flying up the wings but with an extra man at the back to plug some of the gaps.

Whatever happens, if this team has hopes of making the Liguilla, Diego Cocca needs to address his defensive problems and he needs to do it right away.