Cruz Azul Vs. Atlas: Full Time, Blue Machine Engineer 2-1 Comeback Victory

Some poor defending caused Cruz Azul to go down early at home to a very average Atlas side, but they showed great fight and character in the second half as they battled to a 2-1 victory. The Blue Machine didn’t play their best football on Saturday night by any stretch of the imagination, but they did what they had to do to get a result and will be happy with four points in their first two games to start the season.

Head coach Enrique Meza went with a defensive-minded lineup, which was a mild surprise. His team was defensive enough that it could have been fairly called negative last week against UANL Tigres, but most assumed that he would go to a more attacking side at home against Atlas. However, possibly influenced by the awful weather, he kept Javier Orozco and Cesar Villaluz on the bench in a conservative setup.

Hugo Rodriguez scored the opener for Atlas in the 33rd minute. To be fair to Cruz Azul it was a bit against the run of play, but the Blue Machine did not look like a team that was going to dominate the game prior to going down a goal. The rest of the first half was fairly quiet, with Cruz Azul continuing to look like the slightly better side without creating any clear-cut scoring chances.

To start the second half, Meza brought on Orozco for Hugo Droguett. Though Orozco did not provide a goal or assist himself, his inclusion was a good tactical move by Meza and it changed the flow of the game. The equalizer came from Adrian Cortes just 90 seconds into the second half and the winner was scored in the 71st minute by Emmanuel Villa, who headed in a free kick to give his team all three points.