Cruz Azul revived their ghosts of not knowing how to kill their rivals in the grand final of Mexican soccer and the UNAM Pumas took advantage of that to take the 0-0 as visitors and define next Sunday in their CU stadium the winner of the title of the Clausura 2026 tournament of the MX League.

I hope the cement workers do not end up paying dearly for their lack of aim to define and take advantage of the total dominance they had over the Pumas, to the extent that their Costa Rican goalkeeper Keylor Navas once again became the difference in the match with three attempts that took away two goals from the Argentine José Paradela and another from Carlos Rodríguez when he hit the right post.

In fact, the cement team was about to pay dearly for its lack of definition two minutes from the end of the match when Paraguayan Robert Morales hit the crossbar with a shot without a shooting angle that would have completely killed the spirit of the cement workers.

In the end, the “Celestial Machine” had to settle for a 0-0 that was clearly unfair due to what happened on the field, but that is understandable due to the lack of offensive power of a team led by Joel Huiqui that exaggerated the tiki-taka instead of going for the result.

While Pumas got the result they wanted and now on Sunday we will see if they can resolve the contest to obtain their seventh title in their history or let Cruz Azul add the tenth championship, although right now they are closer to the twelfth lost final.

Cruz Azul should have taken the advantage, but had no aim

The “Celestial Machine” of Cruz Azul was largely dominant in the first 45 minutes and should have come out with the advantage on the scoreboard, but the lack of a nominal center forward meant that Pumas' pressure from the first zone did not have major dividends.

Especially because the cement team overwhelmed the cats in the first 15 minutes, shrinking Pumas' starting zone and trying to generate greater arrivals on the right side with a triangle formed by Jeremy Márquez, Carlos Rodríguez and José Paradela, which later with Agustín Palavecino and Christian Ebere became a diamond that put the cats in predicaments.

Thus Cruz Azul had very clear options at the feet of José Paradela, who took a tremendous shot in the 9th minute from 25 meters that forced a great attempt by Costa Rican goalkeeper Keylor Navas to prevent the fall of his goal and keep his squad afloat.

But the cement workers took advantage of the fact that Pumas went back in search of a counterattack to try to cause damage, but as they did not achieve their goal, they were at the mercy of the arrivals of the cement workers who seemed to have the great option of the game for a penalty on Carlos Rodríguez, but which the referee Ismael López Peñuelas did not know how to interpret well.

First, because he scored a penalty and then he was required by the VAR to detect that Carlos Rodríguez, who was fouled inside the area, came from an advanced position, but that it was invalidated because the ball came from Santiago Trigos and with that he validated the action of the penalty that would have changed the course of the game.

The same referee forgave a red card for Rubén Duarte in a tackle without the ball on José Paradela that, logically, would have been marked as an expulsion and put the cats against the wall and began to tip the balance in their favor.

Finally, the first half went down in history as a time dominated by Cruz Azul, but they did not have the arguments to demonstrate their dominance on the field of play.

Cruz Azul continued to dominate, but had the same problem as the first half, not knowing how to define at the exact moment and had to settle for a result that was very little due to what happened in the Ciudad de los Deportes stadium.