I haven’t done one of these in a while and I found myself with nothing much going on. I’ve wanted to get into Liga MX more and this game was sitting on my DVR.

If you are a Chivas or Liga MX fan…go easy on me. I don’t know the players nearly as well as the the US national team so grading was harder. The first 20 minutes or so took forever because I was pausing and rewinding so often to figure out exactly which players were involved in plays. I don’t know if I’m a jinx or Chivas isn’t very good, but the grades weren’t great (as would be expected in a 3-0 loss).

In case this someone’s first time reading one of these, here’s a link explaining the grading system. If you are too lazy to click the link and read it here’s the TLDR summary:

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.

So, to the grades:

The Notes:

Completed +/- Grades

Ratings 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 – Michael Pérez (+8)

To be honest, no one on Chivas blew me away this game. Both central midfielders were pretty good though. Molina got taken off in the 64th minute and he was +7, so he may well have ended up higher than Perez given more time. Perez was influential for Chivas though. The passing was clean, he played good defense, and generally didn’t allow Santos Laguna much through the middle.

Wins the ball and starts the play going forward.

Other Positive Performances

Hiram Mier (+7)

Mier was the more comfortable of the two center back (Alanis being the other) with the ball. Mier did lose his man on the corner for the second goal, so it obviously wasn’t a perfect performance, but he did more good than bad. He was solid throughout the game and was able to break lines on a couple occasions to help progress the ball for Chivas.

Nothing came of this because Chivas was almost totally impotent. Good pass though.

Jesus Molina (+7)

Molina was Perez’ partner in midfield until he came off and while they were both in there Santos got very little in the center of the field. I didn’t have Molina down for a single negative. On the downside, he contributed almost nothing going forward. He was there for his defense and once Chivas fell behind he was the logical choice to take off when chasing the game.

Isaác Brizuela (+7)

Chivas never looked likely to score, but if they were going to, my money would have been on Brizuela creating or scoring it. He slowed down/ran out of gas in the second half and had to come off in the 64th minute, but he had a few nice moments.

Room to Improve

Jesús Sánchez (-6)

Sanchez was a problem for Chivas for large portions of the game. He committed the foul that led to the second goal because he was beat and then got beat for the cross that assisted the 3rd goal. Prior to that he’d also badly kept an attacker onside, turned it over at least five times in bad positions, and didn’t exactly play flawless defense. There was a period in the middle of the match where he was playing better and I thought he’d turned it around, but it didn’t last.

This could easily have led to a goal from a counter.

Oswaldo Alanís (0)

I feel a little bad for Alanis because I don’t feel like he was that bad, but he wasn’t involved in a lot of graded events (only 8). It feels harsh, but the Santos attacker got across him to score the third goal. Alanis is also pretty clearly not as comfortable passing the ball as Mier is. He wasn’t going to get many positives from his passing on this day. I would bet if I rewatched this game and just focused on Alanis I might feel a little bit more positive about him though.

Conclusion

I’m not a Chivas fan or really even a Liga MX fan (trying though), but I was suprised at how toothless Chivas looked. I can’t remember a single dangerous chance for Chivas. There was one long range shot from Huerta towards the end of the game I guess. Not great.

No idea if I’ll do more Liga MX games or not. Let me know if you enjoyed this. I still want to grade a game here and there to get some more practice and refine the system a little bit though. Maybe I’ll do some MLS or Euro league games at some point. Feel free to hit me up with requests.

If you enjoyed this and would like to be informed of future articles type your email address in the box and you’ll be notified of each new post. 🤓