Mexico’s national team might be a mess at the moment, but the quality of their professional league remains mostly unmatched in the region, as Cruz Azul and Atlante used home-field advantage in the semifinals’ second leg to advance to the CONCACAF Champions League final, making it “yet another all-Mexican showpiece, the third in the last four seasons.”
Both teams needed goals on penalty kick goals to advance, first with a 10-man Cruz Azul correcting the 2-0 deficit from their first match at USL upstart Puerto Rican and then equalizing after an Islanders’ overtime goal before prevailing 4-2 in the penalty kick shootout in Mexico City. The tournament’s leading scorer, 21-year-old “secret weapon” Javier Orozco provided much of the drama, scoring the goal to put the game into overtime and also punching home the deciding PK in the shootout.
Meanwhile in Cancun, Atlante dug out from a 2-1 hole after the first leg to outlast Santos in a sea-saw, back-and-forth battle that ended with a stoppage time PK goal by Rafael Marquez Lugo (his second of the match) after Gabriel Pereyra was taken down in the box. Cruz Azul and Atlante will meet in the CCL finals later this month to find out who will following in the footsteps of Pachuca (2007, 2008) and America (2006) to represent Mexico at the FIFA Club World Cup UAE 2009 in December.