RECAP: América v Xolos

  América debuted at home with a win over northern side Xolos de Tijuana with a 2-1 victory. Days leading up to the match there was a lot of criticism around Raúl Jiménez saying that he hasn't been performing well due to his distraction about his possible move to Europe with Porto FC. It bothered 'Turco' Mohamed to even question if Jiménez was still going to be fully devoted to América or just sit back and relax. Fortunately for Jiménez he was able to silence the critics with a goal that would equalize the score in the second half.

  The game started with several shots from both sides, but the action didn't start until the 17th minute where Paul Aguilar committed a foul on Tijuana's Henry Martin inside the penalty area. Juan Arango stepped up to take the penalty kick. Moisés Muñoz tried stopping the ball from entering, but he was unable to reach it in time. América had an important opportunity to make the score 1-1 with what could've been Oribe Peralta's debut goal for the club, but it was ruled offside. The first half ended 1-0 in favor of Xolos.

(mediotiempo)

  The second half started with 'Turco' making 2 offensive subs by putting in Raúl Jiménez and Michael Arroyo who saw his América debut. If América wanted to change the score then they had to do it early in the second half so that they could have enough time to do so. Mohamed had no problem with doing that and it successfully worked when Jiménez received a through ball from Paul Aguilar and chipped the ball over Saucedo to even the score at 1-1.

(mediotiempo)

  Things turned unfortunate for Tijuana when their goalkeeper Cirilo Saucedo got injured in the 78th minute. Farías is forced to use one of his subs for Saucedo and Manuel Lajud comes in to make his Xolos debut. América kept trying to find their second possible goal, but were unable due to some missed shots and decent saves from Lajud. It seemed as if the game was going to end in a draw until Rubens Sambueza tries a final play by sending the ball to the far post where it was founded by Pablo Aguilar and headed to hit Lajud's legs and went into the net giving América the 2-1 victory.

(mediotiempo)

(mediotiempo)