3 things we learned from Jaguares’ 1-1 draw with Toluca

Jaguares de Chiapas probably needed a win on Thursday to feel like they had a good chance to advance from the Liguilla semifinals, but they didn’t quite get it. Toluca scored just before halftime to put them in a hole, and while the home side did pull one back, they couldn’t find a second goal and had to settle for a 1-1 draw.

The first half was light on serious chances, and Toluca should have been given a chance to score the opener via a penalty just before the break. Horacio Cervantes hauled down Pablo Velazquez in the box, but the referee thought the tackle was clean and gave a corner.

Instead of complaining, Toluca got on with it and scored right away. The corner resulted in a serious scramble that ended up with the ball bouncing perfectly for Jeronimo Amione to hit a bicycle kick from six yards on target. It was a bit of a weak effort that Oscar Jimenez could have saved, but the ball slipped through his fingers.

Toluca should have doubled their lead in the 56th minute, but isaac Brizuela missed his team’s best chance from open play. Amione squared for Brizuela, who was unmarked eight yards from goal, but he got his feet tangled and couldn’t even get a shot off.

Jaguares’ lone goal came not long afterwards, and it was a gorgeous one. Andres Andrade set it up with a run to the endline and a cutback towards the penalty spot for Emiliano Armenteros, who was unmarked and placed a composed finish past Talavera.

Jaguares: Jimenez, Muñoz, Dueñas, Cervantes, de la Torre, Zamora (Andrade 55’), Rodriguez, Nava, Armenteros, Diaz (Bermudez 64’), Vuoso (Arizala 75’)

Goals: Armenteros (68’)

Toluca: Talavera, Silva, Orrantia (Ponce 70’), Da Silva, Rojas (Benitez 73’), Galindo, Rios, Amione (Gutierrez 85’), Ortiz, Velazquez, Brizuela

Goals: Amione (45’)

1. Form didn’t matter - These teams were the fourth and fifth seeds because Toluca went on a bad run to close the season, while Jaguares were red hot in their final five games. But Toluca have more talent and were better in the first two-thirds of the season. That showed on Thursday. This was a nice, solid showing from Jaguares, but they’ll be heavy underdogs in the return leg. It looks like Toluca had no problem turning it on when the games started to matter again.

2. Jaguares lacked quality in front of goal - Vicente Vuoso has over 100 career goals in Liga MX, but even in his younger and quicker days, he was a very streaky scorer. Along with the rest of his forward mates, he wasn’t great. Jaguares had almost double the possession and shots of Toluca, but they couldn’t turn that into more than one chance that tested or beat Alfredo Talavera.

3. Toluca remain impossible to stop on set pieces - As Tom Marshall pointed out, Toluca do a lot of scoring on set pieces. In fact, it’s where nearly half their goals come from. And even though they were robbed of a penalty just before halftime, they were able to punish Jaguares with a goal off the corner that ensued. The Jaguares defense is pretty average, and they’ll probably concede another goal like this in the return leg.