Opposition Report: What should the Fire expect from Toluca?
Quiz time: What Liga MX teams have won the most titles?
Even the most casual observer of Liga MX could guess, even if they didn’t know, that Club América tops the list, having added their 15th title in the Clausura a few months ago. In second place is C.D. Guadalajara. Third? It isn’t Cruz Azul or Pumas, the other two of the Cuatro Grandes clubs with giant followings. Nor is it CF Monterrey, a club that has enjoyed considerable recent success, or CF Pachuca, with one of the best academies in the hemisphere.
It’s Deportivo Toluca F.C., the Fire’s next opponent in the Leagues Cup, as fans of the club will tell you in about the first 15 seconds of talking to them about their team (trust me on this). If you didn’t know that, however, you probably aren’t alone. There isn’t a single straightforward reason why it hasn’t achieved the fame internationally that its peers have.
History might be a factor: The team wasn’t one of the original professional clubs in Mexico, but once the team made its way to the top flight, they’ve never been relegated. It might be location: Toluca is a short drive away from México City (soon to be joined to the capital by commuter rail), close enough to be in the shadow (and broadcast range) of América and Cruz Azul but not close enough to earn many fans in the capital.
Most likely, however, it’s that Toluca’s success has come in spurts. The team’s first spurt of glory came in the late 1960s and early 1970s; the second from the late 1990s lasting until about a decade ago, when they were runners up in the 2014 CONCACAF Champions League, losing to Cruz Azul on away goals.
After that, tapered off, and the team finished as low as 15th in the 2022 Clausura, but since that nadir, the team has invested heavily in the squad, bringing in Portuguese manager Renato Paiva from Bahia at the end of 2023. Paiva spent most of his career in Benfica’s youth setup in Portugal during the span when players like Bernando Silva, Rúben Dias, João Félix and João Cancelo came up through the academy.
In the 2024 Clausura that followed, Paiva brought in a very Portuguese-national-team-like system of playing strong defensive soccer while remaining potent offensively. The team finished third in the table, just two points behind winners Club América Close, but not quite there.
Toluca seems determined not to fall short a hair’s breadth shy of the title again. In the offseason, they invested heavily to reinforce every part of the squad, bringing in Bruno Méndez from Granada in Spain, Luan from Brazilian club Palmeiras and Jesús Gallardo from Monterrey to reinforce the back line, Franke Amaya from the New York Red Bulls to reinforce the midfield, and Paulinho from Sporting (Portugal, not the MLS team) as a striker.
The squad now has multiple skilled players throughout the field, most of whom are at various stages of the prime of their careers, and although they might not be a favorite to win titles this season (that is, outside of people who own the jersey), no one would really be surprised if they did. So far, the team is undefeated four games in to heir Apertura 2024 campaign, with two wins at home over Juárez and Mazatlán and draws on the road against Chivas and Cruz Azul, two of the top teams in the league.
The squad is still beatable, and it’s likely, even at home (if not entirely in front of a home crowd, given the number of Toluca fans likely to be in the stands) that the Fire will let Toluca have more of the ball than they’d strictly prefer to have and try to beat them with fast play off counters, but they are dangerous. They have more skill throughout their roster than Puebla, who beat the Fire in penalty kicks last year at a time when the Fire knew they’d topped the group. Unlike Club América, who bested the Fire in the knockouts, they’ve now established a system under their manager, while América had just brought André Jardine to his post a handful of weeks before the Leagues Cup.
The match is now a must-win for the Fire if they want to have a hope of advancing, though even a win no longer guarantees a path through to the knockout stage. A victory, however, would send the message that this team can defy expectations and beat favored opponents – a key skill if the team wants to find success in this tournament or push its way into a postseason spot in the MLS standings.
