3-4-1-2

By: j | July 13th, 2008

Prior to the friendly against the Pumas, the sky lit up with a great fireworks display and a presentation to our squad. As you expect, La Adicción received the team with resounding cheers of support. Unfortunately the fireworks was the only exciting part of the evening as for the most part the squad on the surface looked to be working out the kinks and just getting used to each other on the pitch as they lost 1-0 to the Pumas.

However given this was a friendly and even though this follows a similar 1-0 loss to the Indios de Ciudad Juarez, there is no need for alarm. As a friendly, Ricardo Lavolpe used this as a prime opportunity for new players to be acclimated into the team and to consider new tactics and formations. This is a particularly important event given Mauro Cejas, Hiber Ruiz, Octavio Valdez and our biggest off-season signing José María Basanta from Estudiantes, are all new to the squad and need time to coordinate their efforts on the pitch. Additionally Ricardo made use of a unique offensive formation with Humberto Suazo, Jared Borgetti and Jesús Arellano, dare I say, positioned him akin to a trequartista. Equally it appeared at times the Rayados were verging on playing a 3-4-1-2 which has tremendous potential and displays further versatility.

The match was decided with Felipe Baloy taking down Pumas Fernando Morales and being awarded a penalty at the twenty-third minute. Francisco Palencia converted and the Pumas took the lead to stay. While the Pumas played one man down after Marco Palacios received his second yellow with fourteen minutes left, the Rayados were unable to bring the equalizer.

Returning to the match, while certainly I would have liked to have seen the fireworks continue, I am confident that with the best Manager in México we are using this time wisely and from what I am seeing, that is certainly the case.

Lineups:
MONTERREY: Jonathan Orozco, Severo Meza, Felipe Baloy, Diego Ordaz, José María Basanta, William Paredes (Hiber Ruiz 35´), Octavio Valdez (Arturo Alvarado 52´), Luis Pérez, Jesús Arellano (Joel González 61´), Jared Borgetti (Mauro Cejas 61´), Humberto Suazo (Carlos Ochoa 72´).

PUMAS: Sergio Bernal, Efraín Velarde (Fernando Espinosa 93´), Darío Verón, Marco A. Palacios, Fernando Morales (Daniel Cabrera 76´), Efraín Juárez, Israel Castro, Leandro Augusto, Francisco Palencia (Arturo Rodríguez 69´), Ismael Iñiguez, Juan Carlos Cacho (Ever Galván 74´).