July 11th, 2007 . 7:57 am . By: Jason Benfield

Introducing Tigres

Last Saturday, in the opening match of the Rio Grande Plate, Tigres defeated FC Dallas 2-0.  As expected, Tigres fielded the best team they had available to them (a mixture of first and second team players), while FCD essentially played their second team.  Although there should be a lot of pride for such an inexperienced side to come out of Mexico only conceding two late goals, the Hoops face an uphill battle if they are going to successfully defend the trophy they took home last year.

Tigres’s new head coach, Americo Gallego, has already stated this week that he is very eager to bring home his first trophy for his new club.  The team is very determined to play for a result in this competition, and all practices have been closed to the media.  He will be making two changes to the lineup, but all of the normal starters that were available last Saturday will be starting.  In addition, Fonseca will be available as a substitute.

In Saturday’s game, Tigres apparently played with a three man back line (according to their coach); I believe they used 3 forwards in a 3-4-3 alignment.  Garcia was the central forward, with De Leon and Saavreda (who are historically defenders) as the wingers.  Gaitan played in front of Molina, with Villalobos and Palacios on the outside of the midfield.  Chaves, Cubero, and Sancho played in the defense, with Cubero and Sancho giving them experience around the rookie, Chaves.  According to the reports coming out of Mexico, Chaves was particularly impressive, and could be fighting for a starting position.

At goalie, the two players in the side right now are Saucedo and Palos.  Saucedo will be their starter, and was acquired from Veracruz last season.  Obviously, they see him as the goalie for the future or they would not have loaned Hernandez out.

In defense, Caceres is a stud for the Paraguay national team.  He has experience in France with Nantes, and River Plate.  He was generally regarded as the best defender in the 2006 World Cup.  Rogeiro is a defender on loan from Monterrey.  He is Brazilian and has been around the Mexican league for a while.  Both players are starters, and neither are available for the FC Dallas games.  Cubero is an Argentine who played for Velez Sarsfield before coming to Tigres in 2006.  He was part of the Argentine youth national team system, and is the one set starter who is available against Dallas.  Palacios is a young player who came into the team as an outside midfielder and has been converted to an outside back.  Saavreda is an experienced player who has been around the Mexican League.  Rivas, Chaves, Ruvalcaba, Garcia, de Leon, and Alvarez are all young defenders.  De Leon and Saavreda both apparently played in the first game up top on the wing, even though they are listed as defenders.

In the midfield, Sancho was loaned to Pumas last season and served as their captain in order to help save his original club from relegation, and now he comes back.  Currently, they are trying him as a defensive player, however.  Gaitan plays the attacking midfield spot; the Argentine played at Boca and Villareal.  Lozano is the left midfielder, and he plays for the Mexican National Team, but is unavailable against FCD.  Villalobos was acquired from Queretaro after they were relegated.  Marino is an Argentine who played at Newell’s and Boca.  Apparently, he has been injured quite a bit at Boca, and they loaned him out to Tigres for this season.  He was injured coming into camp, and is training on his own, and not available.  Ayala is an Argentine who came over from Veracruz and is fighting for a starting spot.  Ruiz started his career at Morelia and has been at Tigres for a couple of years.  Escudero and Manuel Garcia are youngsters, along with Rene and Viniegra.

In the attack, Abreu was the major acquisition.  The Uruguayan national team player has played at Deportivo La Coruna, Gremio, and several Mexican teams.  He has led the league in scoring a couple of times.  Fonseca is part of the Mexican National Team, and played at Benfica, Cruz Azul, and Chivas.  Neither are available, as they are both coming off of duty with their national teams.  Juan Pablo Garcia we know from Chivas USA.  At that club, he was used more as a winger or an attacking midfielder, but here he seems to be a forward.  He was very good on free kicks, but suffered with physical play when he was in MLS.  Cerda is a young player.

Possible Lineups

FC Dallas

After the US Open Cup game on Monday, a limited roster will once again be available.  We expect to see essentially the same lineup, with the possible exception of Jones coming on for Wileman.

Tigres

Tigres are still without normal starters Fonseca, Marino, Rivas, Abreau, Caceras, and Lozano, for various reasons, although Fonseca will be available as a sub.  According to the coach, they are switching to a 4 man backline for this game; Rene will be coming in for De Leon, and Ayala for Saavereda.  He made reference to Ayala, Sancho, and Cubero in the back, I assume they will be paired with Chaves, who played so well in the first game.  All of these changes indicate a 4-5-1 will be used for this match.  Again, this is a guess because I am not familiar with the Mexican League.

When Dallas attacks

Tigres are improving their backline significantly for this game.  From the game reports, Ricardinho was the main threat for Dallas in the first game; they must have seen enough to think they wanted to defend better in the second.  It will be interesting to see how he performs, because if they line up the way the coach suggested, this is actually a very strong backline. 

Unfortunately, because Tigres is going to play a bit more defensively, this means that FC Dallas is going to have to sustain possession and pass in tight space; something the starters aren’t that great at, much less the reserves.  With the speed of Oduro, the skill of Ricardinho, and the inexperience of the midfield, this team is probably more set up to counter into space.  But it doesn’t look like Tigres are going to play into that.  Serioux should provide a good link between the defense in the midfield, but someone is going to have to step up and give quality service to the forwards.  It will be interesting to see if either of the young wingbacks or the attacking mid can get the job done.  An important match up is going to be whoever plays d-mid for Tigres against our attacking midfielder (I can’t find anything on the web about this Moleno character).  Whomever plays attacking mid, Jones or Wileman, is probably fighting for a roster spot, so it will be interesting to see if they are effective at all.

When Tigres attacks

It will be very interesting to see how Daniels plays against Garcia – if he ever matches up directly against him, or if he always needs help.  Garcia was a decent MLS player, so it will be a good indication of how far away from ready Daniels is whenever they go head to head.  Palacios is also an accomplished player, so depending on which wing he lines up, it will be good to see if Wagner or Dello-Russo are up to the challenge.  In the middle, everyone has been looking forward to watching Serioux; if he can shut down Gaitan it will be an indicator that he is ready to start for Dallas in MLS play.

Final Analysis

FCD will once again send out a very young team.  The Tigres coach I think expects FC Dallas to send out a better group in order to try to win the trophy, which is why he plans on going with 4 in the back.  It will be interesting to see if Ricardinho actually causes that much trouble, or if they go on the attack after the first 20 minutes.

Serioux supposedly did a great job bottling up the Tigres attack on Saturday, and I would expect the same on Wednesday.  Tigres will also probably run out of steam a bit in the second half as this is the second game in 5 days and they are in preseason.  However, even though they are at home, it would be unrealistic to pick the Hoops to win this game with such a young team.  The Hoops put up a great effort, but Tigres get more aggressive after Serioux is once again subbed out at the 60th minute, and take a 1-0 lead.  Dallas, however, adds a late goal through their young Brazilian and grab the tie, but not the trophy.

FCD 1, Tigres 1

Categories: Match Preview.

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