By Gerardo Romero
18 Jul 2024, 08:19 AM EDT
The head coach of Tigres de la UANL, Veljko Paunovic, was quite excited about the team’s 1-0 victory this Friday against the Águilas del Club América, which allowed them to earn three very valuable points that allowed them to climb to the top five of the standings and further sink the current two-time champions of the Aztec championship.
In statements offered during the press conference after the match, he stressed that this victory has allowed them to gain a fundamental momentum for the current Apertura tournament because they were able to break the negative streak they had against those from Coapa.
“From the moment I found out about this, I saw an opportunity to use it as a motivator. From that moment on, we also sent a message to the dressing room, not just to the players, but to everyone who is part of the staff, where we wanted the message to be one of unity, total dedication and connection that we are going to win,” said the Serbian.
Veljko Paunovic also considered that the team had a poor approach to play in the first half, in which Club América was clearly superior. Despite this, they managed to keep the match scoreless and then scored the winning goal through Marcelo Flores in the 87th minute.
“We started the match wanting to strike quickly and it became a back-and-forth game, and I admit that I had a bad approach, but from the 25th minute onwards we tightened our ranks and in the second half we were a team that went for the win, but with caution where we created many opportunities and above all we were patient,” said Paunovic.
The Tigres of the UANL broke a streak of almost seven years in which they could not beat the azulcremas at the ‘Volcán’, with the team’s last victory against the current two-time champions being on December 2, 2017.
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