Liga MX: News, Drama, and Storylines

Last Updated on September 23, 2026 7:26 pm by Erwin Noguera

The Liga MX leaders lost at home from two goals up. The bottom club won for the first time all season. The Clásico Nacional produced a comeback and finished level.

And after all of it, the top three are exactly where they were.

Jornada 9 was the most eventful weekend of the Apertura, and it barely moved the table. What moved instead was the story of the tournament, and there is a lot of it.

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The Clásico Nacional Finished 2-2, and Chivas Let It Slip

Guadalajara led 2-0 at the Estadio Banorte and did not win.

América’s comeback was built on Miguel Borja, who scored twice and has now put three goals in two matches (one against Cruz Azul in the Clásico Joven and two against Chivas), both at home.

The result suited neither side and exposed something in both. Chivas had the game and lost their intensity in the second half; a team with genuine title ambitions closes that out. América rescued their pride after a difficult fortnight but are still third, still with a game in hand, and still yet to beat a direct rival this season.

Two points separate the top three. Toluca 19, Chivas 18, América 17, with a match in reserve.

Santos Beat the Leaders from 0-2 Down

The result of the round, and nobody saw it.

Toluca scored two goals at home and lost 3-2. Bullaude, Kevin Palacios and Fran Villalba scored for a Santos team sitting seventeenth in the table.

The decisive moment came with a red card. Antonio Mohamed’s side had their defensive balance broken by the sending-off of Everardo López, and a team that had conceded six goals in eight matches shipped three in one afternoon.

Toluca are still top, which tells you how many cushions they had built. They remain the best team in Mexico on the numbers: 20 goals scored, the best attack in the division, and Paulinho sitting second in the scoring charts. But the first real wobble of their season came at home against the second-worst team in the league.

Juárez Won a Game, and It Was Tigres

Eight straight defeats, zero points, a goal difference of minus nineteen. Then this.

FC Juárez beat Tigres UANL 2-0 at home, with Óscar Estupiñán scoring both goals. It is their first win of the Apertura, and it arrived against one of the biggest institutions in Mexican football.

We wrote a fortnight ago that under Article 35 a season like Juárez’s carries no sporting consequence: no relegation, no penalty, nothing. That remains true, and it is still the structural problem with this league. It also makes what happened on Saturday more interesting rather than less: a team with nothing to play for beating a team with everything to play for.

Tigres Are Sixteenth, and It Is a Full Crisis

This is the biggest story in Mexican football right now.

Guido Pizarro resigned before Apertura 2026 even began. Tigres responded by hiring Víctor Manuel Vucetich (the “Rey Midas”, the most decorated manager in modern Liga MX history), and the turnaround has not come.

Under Vucetich: one win, three draws, one defeat in five matches. Tigres sit sixteenth on seven points, level with Santos and above only Juárez. Nine matches, one victory.

Losing on the border to a side that had lost eight in a row is the low point of the season for any club, and for Tigres it is close to unprecedented. They need to win the second half of the tournament simply to reach the eight, and the eighth-place line currently sits seven points above them.

Cruz Azul: The Champions Are Fourth and Just Lost a Final

La Máquina are the reigning Liga MX champions, and they are having a strange season.

They lost 1-0 to Monterrey in Jornada 9 and sat fourth on 15 points. More significantly, they lost the Campeones Cup on 16 September at Inter Miami, and the psychological weight of that has been visible since.

The profile is unmistakable. Cruz Azul has played nine matches and drawn none of them: five wins, four defeats. Sixteen scored, fifteen conceded, a goal difference of +1 from a team in fourth. They will beat anybody and lose to anybody, and for a defending champion that is not a temperament, it is a problem.

Atlante Are Back After Twelve Years

The best story of the Apertura and the one that explains the league’s structure better than any rulebook.

Atlante lost their top-flight place in 2014. They are back in 2026, twelve years later, managed by Miguel “Piojo” Herrera, and they returned by taking the place of Mazatlán FC, not by winning promotion.

That is the franchise model in a single phrase. Under Article 35, there is no promotion and no relegation; clubs enter and leave the division through corporate arrangements rather than results. Atlante did not earn their way back. A slot became available.

They sit fourteenth on eight points with five draws in nine matches: competitive, hard to beat, and not yet threatening the eight.

This is also why the antitrust investigation matters. Mexico’s National Antitrust Commission opened a formal inquiry this month into monopolistic practices in domestic football, prompted by supporter complaints about exactly this arrangement. It will not change anything this season. But it is the first institutional challenge to the model.

Querétaro Are Fifth, and Nobody Predicted It

Gallos Blancos are fifth on 14 points, above Monterrey, Pachuca, Pumas and Tigres.

The run that got them there is genuinely good: 3-2 over Tigres, 1-2 at Pachuca, 1-3 at Atlas, 0-1 at Tijuana, and a draw with León. Four of those are away wins.

The attack runs through Mateo Coronel and Iker Benito, and the defense is organized around goalkeeper Guillermo Allison. Eleven goals scored and eight conceded is not spectacular: it is a team that keeps games tight and takes its chances, which over seventeen rounds is a perfectly good way to reach the Liguilla.

They also have a match in hand on León, Puebla and Atlas, all of whom are level with them on points.

The Logjam Has Not Moved

Five clubs are on 14 points: Querétaro, León, Tijuana, Puebla and Atlas. They occupy fifth through ninth, exactly as they did a week ago, and the eighth place cut line runs through the middle of them.

Monterrey (13) and Pachuca (12) are the two clubs the market expected to be here. Rayados sit in tenth with a game in hand and the best goal difference in that group. Pachuca is eleventh with +5: still the best underlying numbers outside the top four and still on the wrong side of the line.

Under this season’s format, there is no Play-In. Eight qualify directly, ninth is elimination, and there is nothing beyond it.

The League Will Not Stop for the FIFA Date

This is the first international window since the World Cup, and Liga MX is playing straight through it.

Jornada 10 runs from Friday to Sunday, and it opens the second half of the tournament.

Friday 25 September: Atlante vs. Monterrey (19:00), Tijuana vs. Atlas (21:00)

Saturday 26 September: Cruz Azul vs. Toluca (16:50), Chivas vs. Querétaro (17:07), Santos vs. Pachuca (21:05), Tigres vs. Puebla (21:10)

Sunday 27 September: Pumas vs. Atlético San Luis (12:00), León vs. Juárez (19:00), Necaxa vs. América (21:00)

Cruz Azul against Toluca is the fixture. Fourth against first, the champions against the leaders, a side that does not draw against a side that just lost from two up.

Tigres vs Puebla was rescheduled from 19:00 to 21:10, and for a club on seven points, a home match against a team sitting eighth is close to a must-win.

And Chivas host Querétaro in what is quietly the test of whether Gallos belong where they are.

What to Watch

Whether Toluca respond. They have lost once in nine and still lead by a point. Going to Cruz Azul immediately afterwards is the hardest possible answer to give.

Whether América use the game in hand. Seventeen points out of eight matches is the best rate in the league. Win it, and they are level with Toluca.

Whether Tigres survive the month. One win in nine, a manager five games into the job, and a fixture they cannot afford to lose.

And whether anybody breaks the logjam. Five teams on fourteen points, four places available, and eight rounds left to sort it out.

Nine matchdays in, the leaders have been beaten from two up, the champions cannot draw a match, the most decorated manager in the country is sixteenth, and the team that returned from twelve years away did it without playing a promotion match.