América lift Apertura 2023 title: how many clubs have won Liga MX regular season and playoffs?

Club América’s Apertura 2023 triumph is only the 10th time since 1996 that the Liga MX’s regular-season champions - known in Mexico as the ‘superlíder’ - have gone on to win the league title in the same tournament.

América add to unmatched Liga MX haul

América claimed a record 14th domestic crown in their history on Sunday, beating defending champions Tigres 3-0 to secure a 4-1 aggregate win in the final of the postseason playoffs.

After a goalless 90 minutes at the Estadio Azteca, extra-time strikes by Julián Quiñones, Richard Sánchez and Jonathan Rodríguez gave Las Águilas their first Liga MX championship since the Apertura 2018 tournament.

In the Apertura 2023′s regular season, André Jardine’s men topped the table with 40 points - a tally just one short of the Liga MX record for a 17-game league phase. The club’s latest national title moves them two clear of the Mexican top flight’s second-most decorated team, arch rivals Chivas Guadalajara, who have been domestic champions 12 times.

Have América won regular season + playoffs before?

This is the second time in the Liga MX’s short-tournament era that América have managed the regular season-playoffs double. In the Apertura 2014 campaign, a team coached by current Pumas boss Antonio Mohamed also beat Tigres in the final after leading the regular-season standings.

What other clubs have done Liga MX double?

Since the Liga MX introduced the short-tournament format 27 years ago - with each calendar year featuring two league championships - just five other clubs have achieved the feat.

The first to do it was Toluca, in the Verano 1998 tournament. Los Diablos Rojos led the way in the regular-season table with 33 points, before progressing to a playoffs final against Necaxa, who they beat 6-4 on aggregate. Toluca then doubled up twice more in the Verano 1999 and Verano 2000 championships, and remain the only club to have combined regular-season and playoffs supremacy on three separate occasions.

Pachuca then became the second kings of the regular season to go on to lift the title in the postseason, managing it twice in three tournaments. After beating Atlético San Luis to win the Clausura 2006 title, Los Tuzos saw off América in the Clausura 2007 final for their second league phase-playoffs success.

In the Clausura 2012, Santos Laguna claimed the fourth of their total of six Mexican championships on the back of a table-topping regular season, before América were the fourth Liga MX club to pull off the achievement in the Apertura 2014.

Six years later, León joined the Liga MX’s select club of championship-winning ‘superlíderes’ when they bagged their eighth and most recent domestic crown, clinching the Apertura 2020 with final victory over Pumas.

In the tournament after that, the Clausura 2021, Cruz Azul became the group’s sixth and most recent new member, following up league-phase dominance with victory over Santos Laguna in the trophy decider. The triumph ended the nine-time Mexican champions’ 24-year title drought.

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