Hello again. Even though practically no one read my last article and there is certainly almost no demand for another one…I enjoyed watching Liga MX, so I’m doing it again. 😂 If you’re a Liga MX or Club America fan feel free to send this on to your friends.

Anyway, if you’ve never read one of these before it’s a player grade article with some research behind the grades. If you’d like a full explanation of the system click here. If you’d prefer the quick and dirty version…here you go:

I watch the game very carefully, pausing and rewinding as I go. Every time there is an above or below average play (that I catch) it is assigned a positive or negative value. At the end of the game I total these plays up and each player gets a positive or negative number. This is that players “grade” for the game. I post my notes with each article so feel free to check my work.

The Notes

Completed +/- Grades

Rating Guidelines

15+ Excellent game 9-14 Played well to very well 5-8 Solid 0-4 Not great, Bob Below 0 Sailing by Christopher Cross (this is aimed at a very specific person)

*The Adjusted Total uses the Elo ratings to take into account opponent and competition factors.*

MOTM – Bruno Valdez (+11)

I have a bit of a man crush on Bruno after watching this game. He was a ton of fun to watch. There were a number of times where Valdez intercepted a ball, dribbled forward and joined the attack. Joseph Lowery would love this guy. His athleticism and anticipation were on point all game. Honestly, America were as impotent as Chivas this game…Valdez looked like he might be their best chance to score.

How could you not love a defender that does this?

Other Positives

Agustín Marchesín (+9)

It wasn’t so much the saves (although he did make a couple good ones – 45th minute in particular), it was his distribution. As I mentioned above, America had a tough time getting attacks going. Marchesin would consistently play passes over the first line (or two) of pressure to get America into good positions. Nothing came of it, but I was impressed.

Uribe could have controlled it better (that was a theme), but it was a nice ball.

And that’s about it for positives. A couple other guys had a nice moment or two, but a 0-0 result probably isn’t going to end up in a whole bunch of high grades. I was pretty excited about Mateus Uribe for a minute (he started off well), but he fell off as the match went on. I did want include one clip though. This was awesome:

Shades of Beastmode here

Room for Improvement

Paul Aguilar (-2)

Both fullbacks had a bit of a rough game in this one. I think that’s partially because Club America is so strong down the middle. Not much danger was going to get through the Aguilera-Valdez-Rodriguez triangle. Aguilar wasn’t real involved in the game (only 6 graded events), but four of the six were negative. He got burned by Leon attackers a couple times and didn’t contribute in the attack at all.

If I were a Leon fan seeing this guy smiling after screwing up yet another scoring chance would make me want to punch a hole in the wall.

Jorge Sanchez (-1)

Sanchez was the more interesting of the two outside backs to me. He was much more involved (14 events) than Aguilar and looks like he could be a pretty good player. He was just inconsistent against Leon (he is only 21). He played some great defense at times and then other times was asleep at the wheel. If he can stay locked in I think America might really have a player in Sanchez.

Lost his man at the back post. This could easily have been a goal.

Conclusion

I never want to know the score of a game before I watch. Even the painstaking process of grading games like this is more interesting if I don’t know the result. That being said, I feel like all 0-0s should come with a warning on them. Not saying there’s never a good 0-0 game (this one wasn’t the worst tbh), but games without a goal are rough.

Club America ended up with a 2.0 team average. The problem imo is that there were almost no special plays, and none of them were on offense. I’ve noticed over the course of doing these that a goal usually results from many +1 plays (5-6) being strung together, two or three +2 plays in a sequence, or one amazing play (+3 or higher). There was none of that from America. I was hoping Dos Santos might bring some magic when he came on, but it didn’t happen. I know I’m just dropping in for one game, but America needed more from their playmakers in this one.

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