Club Tijuana Xoloitzcuintle Manager On Stunning Loss
Club Tijuana Xoloitzcuintles played to a 4-0 loss against host Pachuca CF Saturday at Estadio Hidalgo. Pachuca scored a pair of goals in each half of the LIGA MX 2019 Clausura Week 10 match.
Oscar Pareja was blunt. The Club Tijuana Xoloitzcuintles manager was clear when the reasoning behind a 4-0 loss to host Pachuca Saturday night at Estadio Hidalgo.
“We were all a weakness today. But we look at it as a unit,” said Pareja during his post-match news conference.
“We didn’t have a good game as a team. Pachuca had a great game. We will continue with our game model and we are going to fight in an important cup match.
“We had poor starts in each half,” said Pareja. “We gave a lot of confidence to a team who manages the ball well on the opponent’s side of the field and a team that has players who can finish. They had a lot of scoring options to start the game and the same in the second half.”
“We tried to react at times but we were not efficient.”
“Pachuca made it difficult for us. We can talk about a lot of things but we can’t have excuses,” said Pareja. “We had a bad performance and we as coaches are also responsible for. The players are coming off playing great and we will keep those memories and try to correct it. We will move on as a group and face what is next.”
What is next is for Club Tijuana to continue with its plan in attacking both the LIGA MX and Copa MX competitions. Despite the result against Pachuca in the 2019 Clausura Week 10 match, Pareja said his team must move on.
“We didn’t have a good afternoon. It’s time to turn the page and continue with our work,” Pareja said. “We have four or five days to get ready for the next (LIGA MX) game. We have some good games coming up.”
Coming up for the Xoloitzcuintles is a Copa MX quarterfinals match at Monarcas Morelia Tuesday. Pareja spoke about how his team needs to prepare for that match after a difficult result in Pachuca. After all, Club Tijuana was coming off a five-game unbeaten streak in league play and is unbeaten in its last three Copa MX games.
“It is not easy to get a win after win in Mexican soccer,” Pareja said. “We are coming off earning points. We need to keep that up if we want to get into the playoffs. We will surely have games in which we will play better and shine and, hopefully, we don’t have more dark games like this one. It’s a difficult place to play here.”
“We as coaches have to look and see if we made mistakes and put our players in situations where we can help them and take a step ahead with this.”
Match Recap: CLUB TIJUANA ALLOWS PAIR OF GOALS IN EACH HALF AT PACHUCA
Jaine Barreiro and Jose Ulloa scored for the Tuzos in the first half while Edwin Cardona added a pair in the second.
Barreiro gave the home side the 1-0 lead when he beat his mark and jumped to head in a corner kick. Barreiro’s header bounced past the goal line, just out of the reach of Club Tijuana goalkeeper Gibran Lajud in the 10th minute.
The Tuzos extended its lead to 2-0 five minutes later when Jose Ulloa put in a free kick by Cardona. The set piece went through a group of defenders and attackers, finding Ulloa alone near the far post to tap it in.
Pachuca took a 3-0 lead in the 49th minute when Cardona sent in a low-rolling shot to the right of Lajud after a Club Tijuana erroneous pass. Franco Jara set up Cardona with a soft rolling pass from right to left just inside the penalty area. Cardona scored again from a similar spot in the 54th minute, again beating Lajud for his second score of the night.
Club Tijuana will now resume Copa MX play when it travels to face Monarcas Morelia Tuesday in the cup tournament quarterfinals. The Xoloitzcuintles will then host Rayados de Monterrey in a Week 11 LIGA MX match Saturday, March 16 at Estadio Caliente.
