Pumas, against all odds, perfectly capitalized on the final matchday of the Clausura 2026 tournament to snatch the overall lead from Chivas thanks to the combination of results generated by their 2-0 victory at Pachuca and the Sacred Flock's 0-0 draw with Xolos.

With these results, both teams reached 36 points, but the Pumas surpassed them with two more goals to finish the championship with a better goal difference and thus face the eighth place in the overall standings, which was contested by Atlas and Xolos de Tijuana.

The ending could not go without controversy either, because Pumas were favored with a very questionable penalty in a play where Victor “Pocho” Guzman was stepped on by Jordan Carrillo and the referee interpreted it as a foul by the Tuzos player to confirm the feline victory with the penalty scored by Paraguayan Robert Morales almost at the end of the first half, after at the beginning of the match, Uriel Antuna had opened the scoring.

The opposite happened in Guadalajara, where the Referee Katia Itzel Garcia failed to award a penalty against Xolos in the final minutes of the match held at Akron Stadium, a penalty that would have given Chivas the overall lead and the chance to continue fighting for the million-dollar prize. However, she did fail to call a handball by Ecuadorian Jackson Porozo when he challenged a Chivas forward for the ball in the air. As he fell, with his back to the ball, he touched it with his hand, but the referee reviewed the play using VAR and decided not to award the penalty that would have changed Chivas' fate. Thus, history was written, where in the match between Pachuca and Pumas, the Pumas took advantage of Pachuca's disarray in the first half to prevent them from improving their position for the playoffs. Instead, they went all out in search of victory to take the overall lead, something that hadn't happened in 11 years.After breaking a 24-year drought without dominating the competition that year—their last time as overall leaders was in the 1990-91 season—Efrain Juarez's work with Pumas, who reached 36 points, surpasses the numbers from 2015, when they seized the overall lead with 35 points. Now, after withstanding pressure against the coach, he managed to convince his squad and achieve a milestone for the team of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Meanwhile, Chivas failed to play well against Xolos and missed the great opportunity to give the players who will remain for the playoffs, while several starters are called up to the national team, the privilege of starting as overall leaders.