Club América's midfield key in win over Pachuca

Club América are the deserved Liga MX Femenil 2023 Clausura champions, downing Pachuca 2-1 in Pachuca on Friday night and doing it all over again in Estadio Azteca in front of 58,156 fans on Monday. Pachuca did well in the first half of the first leg, but América shut them down and never let them get back into the game.

One of the ways América was able to do this was having flexibility along the back line, with Jocelyn Orejel playing in a half back role going between the central defense and defensive midfield. It was wildly effective. América’s midfield suffocated Pachuca, not allowing the ball to get to their attacking forwards. With Mónica Ocampo and Viri Salazar out wide supporting Charlyn Corral up top, the onus was on Jenni Hermoso to create chances and serve as a link between Karla Nieto and Marta Cox in the midfield. América exploited this however, knowing that Las Tuzas were going to try to get the ball to Hermoso to try to make something happen.

Thank you for reading Golazo del Gringo! If you enjoyed reading this post, please share it with anyone who enjoys women’s soccer.

Football vs. Fútbol

In American (gridiron) football cornerbacks will “jump a route” or bait a quarterback to throw to what looks like an open receiver when in fact the cornerback knows the route and is actually timing when a ball is going to that receiver in order to jump in front of the pass and intercept the ball.

(As an aside, the above video is objectively hilarious in many ways.)

América was doing this all night to Pachuca, with their Andrea Pereira, Kim Rodríguez, Jocelyn Orejel, and Aurelie Kaci showing open lanes for players to pass towards Hermoso and the forwards only to get in front of these passes when they were en route. In this sequence, Viri Salazar has the ball out on the right flank. Hermoso is closest to the center dot, and it looks like an easy pass to make.

But let this play and you’ll see she instead tries to dribble centrally. Orejel keeps roughly the same distance between her an Hermoso and sees Salazar telegraphing the pass to Hermoso.

Orejel then jumps the route, and picks the ball clean.

This repeated itself over and over for Pachuca. América knew Pachuca had to be aggressive and go for goals, and knew those goals couldn’t come if they locked down the midfield. América also did a great job at making sure players were marked well. Look at the defensive positioning during this play - even if Salazar tries to play the ball to anyone there’s a yellow shirt standing by to get involved.