Mextranjeros back to chase their league titles
After a week of international games, where Mexico advanced to the Final Four of the Concacaf Nations League, the Mexican legion is coming back to their teams, and some players look to seal an impressive performance with the title.
Following the steps of players like Hector Moreno (AZ), Ricardo Osorio and Pavel Pardo (Stuttgart), a number of players have the opportunity of winning their respective league with a ‘small’ team, while others will try to do it with more habitual winners. Starting with the most exciting and perhaps even most surprising of them all, Santiago “Chaquito” Gimenez, who has become the main man in Feyenoord’s attack.
Eredivisie
Gimenez has been on absolute fire, he scored the first goal against Ajax in a crucial game for the title, which Feyenoord ended up winning 2-3. Before the match, Feyenoord was leading the Eredivisie with 58 points, however Ajax was trailing them closely with 55 points. With the victory, Feyenoord put themselves at more comfortable six points apart, however the distance is still not decisive as there are eight more games left in the season.
‘Chaquito’ has proved even more essential in the Europa League. In the Eredivisie he has 8 goals in 24 appearances, quite a distance from the top scorers Anastasios Douvikas and Xavi Simons, both with 13, and positively out of the top 10 goalscorers for this season. Compare that to the Europa League, where he has scored 5 goals in 7 games and comes only behind Marcus Rashford with 6 goals in 8 games. Nevertheless, Rashford has 515 minutes played, whereas Gimenez has only 230 minutes played, less than half the amount of playtime. Just before the break, Gimenez scored the first of seven goals to give his team access to the quarter-finals against Roma.
Edson Alvarez remains one of the top defenders in the league with multiple teams showing interest in having his services, on the other hand Jorge Sanchez has been called out by the dutch media after allegedly not being able to adapt to the dutch league. Both will try to catch up to Feyenoord who lay 6 points ahead of them.
Serie A
Moving to Italy, where a record of three players are representing Mexico in this year’s Serie A, yet another title is cooking up for a mextranjero. In a league completely dominated by the two Milan teams and Juventus, Napoli seem to be on the path of breaking that supremacy. The last time a team not in the big three won the Scudetto was back in 2001, when Roma, led by legendary Francesco Totti, came two points ahead of the Juventus of Trezeguet, Del Piero and Inzaghi. The last time Napoli won the League was in 1990, with that mythical Napoli of Maradona and Careca. This time around, Napoli sit at a comfortable 19 points ahead of Lazio, however, there are still 11 games to be played, so Napoli must not relax if they want to get their third Scudetto.
Chucky Lozano has been an important part of the team for coach Luciano Spalletti, he has played in all but two games, averaging 51 minutes per game. Even though his scoring numbers have dwindled compared to his debut season, he keeps being an important ally for strikers Victor Osimhen and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. He has also had a solid performance in the champions league, where they breezed through the group stages with 5 wins and 1 loss and bulldozed Frankfurt 5-0 in the aggregate in the round of 16. Now they await Milan in the quarter-finals.
Memo Ochoa deserves a special mention, the 37 year old keeper raised eyebrows when he transferred to humble Salernitana after yet another memorable performance in the world cup. Now he has established himself as one of the most important goal-keepers in the Serie A, with reports of AC Milan being interested in signing the veteran Mexican. His club sits 8 points ahead of relegation positions and will try to remain in Italy’s top flight. Unfortunately, Johan Vasquez is on the verge of getting once again relegated, one season after his former club Genoa also got booted to the Serie B. His team Cremonese is in the last place of the table with 13 points, 11 points away from avoiding relegation.
Greece and Belgium
In the Greek Super League, Orbelin Pineda has shown an important growth, becoming an important part of the team’s second position in the regular season. He has 7 goals and 2 assists in 26 games, solid numbers for a midfielder. AEK Athens came second, two points behind leader Panathinaikos, and thus securing a spot in the final playoffs. A round robin of the top 6 teams will decide both European berths and the national champion.
Lastly, Gerardo Arteaga, is leading the Jupiler league with Genk, and has become an important part of the team, completing almost all playing minutes in the 28 league games so far played, but will have to play a playoff round to decide the championship.
