Enjoying Watching Mexican Pro Soccer Playoffs

The Mexican Liga MX (premier professional soccer league) Liguilla championship playoffs for the Clausura 2017 season are underway, with eight teams playing each other in two-match series.  My favorite UANL Tigres...from the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, located in a city in greater Monterrey...are predictably back in the hunt after winning the Apertura Liguilla tournament back in December.  Their manager, Ricardo Ferretti, is a consistent winner, regardless who is playing for him...he reminds me a lot of football's Bill Belichick and basketball's Gregg Popovich...and he's been managing Tigres for seven years now, a long term for professional league soccer.  Tigres won their opening match against crosstown rival Monterrey 4-1 and are now playing the second leg, leading at halftime 1-0.  The goals for the two contests afterwards are added together and the team with the highest total advances to the next round...

Tigres spent most of the 2017 Clausura regular season low in the standings and only qualified for the playoffs through a late-season surge...which seems so far to be continuing into the playoffs.  Tijuana, which finished the regular season in first place, also had the aggregate best record for the combined 2016-17 Apertura/Clausura seasons: were this a European league like the English Premier League, Spain's La Liga, or Germany's Bundesliga, Tijuana would have won the title outright since these leagues don't stage postseason playoffs and give the trophy to the high regular season finisher.  On a different note, the Monarchs (Monarcos) de Morelia were slated to finish to be relegated to the lower Ascenso league, but a last-second goal on the last day of the season kept them in the top league...and also qualified them for the Liguilla.  And they won their first game against Tijuana 1-0...talk about a dramatic change of fortunes!  The other teams in the championship tournament are Atlas vs. Guadalajara and Toluca vs. Santos Laguna...

I don't know whether Tigres will win the championship this time around, but I love to watch their disciplined and defensive play.  Now let's see if they can hold on against Monterrey in the second half.  Univision is showing the game I'm watching...if you also have the UnivisionDeportes channel (which I don't), you'll be able to see Toluca/Santos Laguna later on tonight...