El Vasco and El Indiecito, for a booty bigger than the Concachampions

LOS ANGELES – Two ERs and a single healing potion. Thus the environment of the Final of the Concachampions between America and Monterrey.

El Nido already needs a trophy. Prolonged vigil threatens him with starvation. Santiago Solari is the arithmetic champion of 2021. The statistics flutter festively, but without titles, everything remains in anecdotes. The figures raise respect, but not trophies or prestige.

Striped, meanwhile, flies and crawls, and flies again and crawls again. They are the coleoptera of the Mexican tournament. Indecipherable beetles: sometimes they fascinate, sometimes they terrify. And living off the deeds of 2019, while squandering fortunes on reinforcements, doesn’t like Monterrey.

For this reason, as a healing poultice for both – and so different – emergencies, the Final of the Concachampions materializes, opportunely, for both teams, which in the League march in an almost polarized way: America is the feudal lord (34 points ), and Rayados crawls between the misfortune of the Repechage and a direct League with 20 units.

Even between the forms of the coaches of both teams there are marked differences. The Indiecito Solari chose a route that is not very obsequious with the show, but generous with the objectives: he plays ugly, boring, but develops almost perfectly his way of, eye, make up points, because that is the perfect description of America: make up points.

Javier Aguirre still oscillates between illusion and disorder. In a consecutive way, he beat Cruz Azul (4-1) in the semifinals of the Concachampions, humiliates Tigres (2-0), exorcises Cristante’s Diablos (2-0), and beat Santos at home (1 -2). And all this he does with a precious soccer player. Middle Monterrey, preparing the carnival.

However, afterwards, he stumbles four times and against opponents in disgrace, and he does so ridiculously, scoring just two goals in those four games. Sucumbs thrashed against Juárez (3-1), León (0-1), Querétaro (1-0), and Necaxa (0-1). And they turned off the lights in Monterrey.

And of course, at the beginning of 2021, much more was expected from Javier Aguirre and much less from Indiecito Solari.

In the end, that is another ingredient that embellishes this Concachampions Final this Thursday with morbidity: the profiles of both coaches. Santiago Solari (45 years old) and Javier Aguirre (turns 63 on December 1) arrive with very different resumes, but they are of little use in the marked card game that is Liga Mx.

Both cultured types, intelligent, cunning, with an imposing personality in front of the player, fed with a silver spoon, and with one more mooring –not presumably–, in their past, the two wandered with more pain than glory through the Atlante.

Solari has a single merit pin in his showcase: having won a Club World Cup with Real Madrid, which with him, without him, and despite him, he would have achieved it. Later, adrift, until the opportunity with America jumped. And their numbers are conclusive: pure gold, which, however, must be enough to manufacture a trophy, or they will be dead pages.

Javier Aguirre dared in Europe. He returned to Osasuna and Atlético de Madrid to European tournaments. He enjoyed little with Zaragoza, Espanyol, and the passage through Leganés had highly emotional passages, but still, the team descended, in an arbitration execution against Real Madrid.

In addition, his pilgrimage led him to lift the Mexican National Team twice from the autopsy plate, and take it to the 2002 World Cup in South Korea / Japan and South Africa 2010. In his journey with national teams, he did not transcend either with Japan or with Egypt.

Obviously, El Indiecito has overtaken El Vasco in the common arena of the Liga Mx, although obviously Solari envies a route like Aguirre’s.

The reality is that the Argentine coach chose a pragmatic way of playing soccer, and has achieved a very high commitment from his players. The Mexican coach is still babbling or at least his team is still babbling about what he finally wants to do on the court.

Curious that Aguirre, who makes the word and his facility for cuddling with the players, two powerful arguments, has not yet achieved that explosive chemistry to guarantee the dedication and commitment of his players. Sometimes they seem jaded, bloated, beaten.

On the other hand, without a doubt, both teams have been affected by the FIFA Date, but each has reacted differently. Obviously, Santiago Solari has been smarter or more cautious or more cunning, or all of the above.

America’s way of playing allows a less physically exhausting demand on the players, and in this way controls the paperwork, with extreme patience. Proof of this is that he has achieved triumphs with the clock already bled: against Santos, Sebastián Córdova scores at ’87; against San Luis, Roger Martínez at ’97, and against Pumas, Mauro Lainez scores at ’98.

Monterrey has had a rugged Apertura 2021. Seven players loaned to national teams, plus a long trail of injured players, eventually totaling 10 absences of players who are tentatively starters.

Javier Aguirre made a clean-up at the start of the tournament. And then he rescued players who seemed lost: Ponchito González, Maximiliano Meza, Celso Ortiz and even Matías Kraneviter. On the other hand, he is just beginning to rehabilitate Erick Aguirre, and to recover the best version of Charly Rodríguez, without yet reaching the full level with Joel Campbell, and Vincent Janssen still manifests aftermath of his injury.

For this Concachampions Final, both teams add mystery. América speculates with the availability of Pedro Aquino, in addition to a veil of suspense with Emanuel Aguilera, Bruno Valdez, Sebastián Cáceres and Jorge Sánchez, in addition to the fact that Miguel Layún cannot play this Final, because he started the tournament precisely with Rayados.

For Rayados, Janssen is still hungover from a pubalgia, but like the injured Duván Vergara and Héctor Moreno, Javier Aguirre lit candles to have them available. In Wednesday’s practice, this lineup was hinted at: Esteban Andrada; Stefan Medina, César Montes, Sebastián Vegas and Erick Aguirre; Carlos Rodríguez, Celso Ortiz and Arturo González; Maxi Meza, Rogelio Funes Mori and Jesús Gallardo.

And if you want to enrich the emotional and morbid perimeter of this Concachampions Final, add that anxiety of the Monterrey teams to be taken into account for that olimpo, false, phony, liar, of the supposed greatness of clubs in Mexican soccer. Defeating America would allow him to peek into their noses again in a forbidden environment.

And of course, America struts, defiantly, unbearable, with that beautiful headdress that arouses anger and envy, by proclaiming itself under the insult of #Hate meMore.

And do you want to enter the gloomy world of fanaticism? Well, half Monterrey, that is, the Tigres fans, which are normally anti-American, this Thursday night, become Americanist.

One more? A certain sector of Mexican coaches will be betting on “Javier Aguirre Onaindia Arraskaeta Landeta Goyado Alberdi Uriarte Garechana and Lanetarzúa”, and not because of an inordinate love for him, but because the crowning of a newcomer in the Mx League, like Solari, would be felt them as a slap to their stale nationalism.

As can be seen, El Vasco and El Indiecito have a greater booty than being champions of the most murky region of the football world, yes, that of Concacaf.