Tijuana Xolos 2012 Campeones Commemorative Shirt

This Shirt Commemorates Tijuana’s finest hour. Here is Manuel Medina’s post game article in the late publication, San Diego Red:

Tijuana’s Xolos are the 2012 Mexican National Champions
Xolos 2-0 Toluca (4-1 global score)

TOLUCA, MEXICO CITY. Tijuana has always been a city that dreams big, by which for 2 decades they have tried to make it into the first division in the Mexican professional soccer league, which today they have made history and are the Mexican soccer champions of the biggest soccer stage in the country.

Xoloitzcuintles de Caliente defeated the red devils from Toluca with a score of 2-0, which now with this victory they can show off as the team who was able to come into this division and win the championship title in little time.

The game took place at the Nemesio Diez stadium, which had a sea of thousands of red devils fans and only a few fans from Tijuana who came to support their team, Xolos.

This is how the game went:

The first opportunity that Tijuana had to score, was on a corner kicked which was caused by Fidel Martinez, but the shot just ended up going way over the horizontal goal arch that the red devils goalie Talavera was defending.

The red devils initiated some offensive attacks, but none were successful, which on a play the Argentinian Cristian Pellerano took a shot from all the way outside of the goalie area, but Talavera was able to stop and control the ball.

Little by little the red devils started to improve their game, specifically on the left side of the field where Edgar “El Parajo” Benitez was playing, which he ran the ball many times trying to unbalance and tire out the defenders from Tijuana.

Around the 22nd minute mark the game seemed to be at a standstill, by which then Xolos started to recover the ball from their danger zone, where Toluca was not able to create enough space to pass through with the ball and score.

Tijuana looked as if they had forgotten on how to get to the goalie area.

Tijuana would get close about 2 more times thans to the Tijuana born player Fernando Arce, who took some good corner kicks, which Toluca did not know how to respond to.

Now with a minute left to play in the first half, Toluca had all their players from the bench warm up as if they there were going to be some changes made for the second half.

For the second half of the game, Antonio Mohamed had substituted Richard Ruiz for Alfredo “Chango” Moreno, who throughout the first half of the game did not have any clear opportunities to score.

With about only a minute into the 2nd half, Edgar Castillo took a long shot at goal which the goalie from Toluca once again was able to stop and control.

At the 57th minute of the game, Toluca had their best chance to score when “El Parajo” Benitez from the left part of made an incredible pass to Lucas Silva, who with his head passed the ball to Luis Tejeda, which the ball just ended veering off to the right side of the goal arch of Tijuana’s goalie, Saucedo.

In minute 65 if the game there were some changes made, where Juan Carlos Cacho would play up towards the front to participate in more offensive plays, while Edgar Dueñas return back to sit on the bench.

With this change Xolos now had a 5-4-1 formation.

At the 69th minute of the game now, Riascos was able to provoke a free kick after being fouled by Diego Novaretti, in which the referee then decided to pull out the yellow card for Novaretti for the foul he had committed.

On the free kick that was award to Xolos Fernanco Arce took an impressive shot at goal, which left goalie Talavera standing still, and Ruiz took advantage of the defenders for sleeping on the play, which he ran towards the ball that had rebounded of the goal post, and kicked it into the net to put Xolos up on the score board 1-0.

On the next play “the snake” Riascos did not have any mercy on the goalie when he received a pass, which left him and just the goalie facing off on his run towards the arch, where he was able to shake off goalie Talavera to put the team now up 2-0.

Sadly the fans of the red devils started to throw objects onto the field, which also minutes later when Riascos left the game to sit on the bench they showered him with beer.

Jorge Hernandez came in for Riascos at the 74th minute of the match.

2 minutes later goalie Cirilo Saucedo made an impressive save, as of the result of now various offensive attacks that the red devils were having more frequently.

With 8 minutes now left in the game, fans started to leave the stadium not pleased of their local team’s performance, and others who stayed were trying to encourage the team while chanting “Devils, Devils.”

Referee Chacon now blew the final whistle to end the game, and Xolos now are officially crowned as the tournament champions, who after years and years of struggle to make it to this game can now show off as the new champions, which they very well deserve.

Here is the line-up:

TOLUCA: Alfredo Talavera; Diego Novaretti, Gerardo Rodríguez, Edgar Dueñas; Wilson Thiago, Lucas Silva, Antonio Naelson, Antonio Ríos; Carlos Esquivel, Édgar Benítez, Luis Carlos Tejada. Head Coach: Enrique Meza. The Bench: Miguel Centeno, Francisco Gamboa, Marvin Cabrera, Juan Carlos Cacho, Héctor Acosta, Isaac Brizuela, Edy Brambila.

TIJUANA: Cirilo Saucedo; Edgar Castillo, Javier Gandolfi, Pablo Aguilar, Juan Carlos Núñez; Cristian Pellerano, Joe Corona, Fernando Arce; Fidel Martínez, Alfredo Moreno, Duvier Riascos. Head Coach: Antonio Mohamed. The Bench: Adrián Zermeño, Joshua Ábrego, Raúl Enríquez, Jorge Hernández, Richard Ruiz, Diego Olsina, Raúl Nava.

Referees for the game: Francisco Chacón Gutiérrez, Alberto Morín M., Salvador Rodríguez, Jorge A. Pérez D.