José Rivero de Cruz Azul faces Omar Campos, in the first leg of the Liga MX.Andrés Herrera / EFE
There is skepticism mixed with joy.
Cruz Azul has won the first leg of the Liga MX 0-1.
The cement team has taken a valuable advantage against Santos Laguna and will return to their team, at the Azteca stadium, to leave behind more than 23 years full of a collection of ridicule, agonizing defeats and lost titles.
The cement producers will play, this Sunday, against their own skepticism.
Cruz Azul played on the wire.
The position of the club in the first leg final was to go out and stand firm.
Hold on like a
boxing
sparring
.
The cement makers gave the initiative to the locals to decipher which were the ideal cracks to attack.
In the first minutes Santos Laguna took control.
Otero and Aguirre hit him from outside the area, with low but sinuous shots, which were a scare for the cement workers guarded by Jesús Corona, a 40-year-old goalkeeper who insists on winning the League with Cruz Azul before retiring.
Jonathan Rodríguez, scorer and momentary idol of Cruz Azul, began to break the wall of Santos.
In the first half he was hand in hand with the last Lagunero defender and, when he had a shot option, he got tangled up with his own feet.
Rodríguez even tried a Chilean shot that was well saved by Carlos Acevedo, Mexico's revelation goalkeeper.
The intermission served for Cruz Azul's dressing room to fill the tank to endure.
The celestial coach, the Peruvian Juan Reynoso, asked for more resistance to find Santos' weakness.
The cement makers knew how to fight the attackers who became confused in front of the goal of Corona.
More information
Cruz Azul will play a Liga MX final again to face their own demons
The soccer leagues of Spain and Mexico strengthen ties
Reynoso, with 20 minutes remaining, moved the board.
The coach sent the neat Orbelín Pineda to the field to add to the attack of a Cruz Azul that had his rival within reach.
And the effect was immediate.
In a foray into attack, Pineda connected with a Luis Romo in futsal player mode: he dribbled as much as possible to protect the ball in the rival area.
The rebounds favored him.
And with more determination than creativity, Romo scored the 0-1.
A goal suffered.
The final stretch was for Santos a frantic search to stay in the fight.
For Cruz Azul, it was an ordeal: they had already been frustrated on many occasions by the victory, including championships, in the last minutes.
In Torreón, those in blue did not want the same story.
Santos Laguna frustrated Cruz Azul in 2008.
In those days the cement team had accumulated nine years without reaching a final, and winning it was another feat.
This time, in 2021, Cruz Azul clings to a silver lining to be champion again, his greatest obsession.
Subscribe here
to the
newsletter
of EL PAÍS México and receive all the informative keys of the current situation of this country