Ángel Sepúlveda on the cusp of joining Cruz Azul’s historic goal scorers

Striker Ángel Sepúlveda is aiming to become the sixth scoring champion in Cruz Azul history. The Mexican currently occupies second place in the Apertura 2023 top goal scorers table, tied on nine goals with Paraguayan forward Carlos González from Tijuana. With two games left to play in the regular phase (against Chivas and Puebla), Sepúlveda is well positioned to write his name alongside the Cementero’s historic top goal scorers.

Santos Laguna’s Harold Preciado currently tops the Liga MX goal scoring chart with 11 goals - the Colombian is in a productive run, having found the net in five of the team’s last six games.

To dislodge Preciado or pull level with him, Sepúlveda will need to score at least two goals in the next two games. He too is in a good moment of form, bagging a hat trick against Necaxa in Week 11 and having scored in all but one of the team’s last five games.

Of the nine goals that Preciado has to his name, three were scored with Querétaro before his transfer to Cruz Azul at the end of August.

Who are Cruz Azul’s goal scoring champions?

If he achieves his goal, Sepúlveda will join a select group of Cruz Azul’s goal scoring champions, starting back in the 1970s when Horacio López Salgado scored 25 goals during the 1974-75 season to end as the league’s most prolific striker.

Another 20 years would pass before another Cementeros striker would finish as the scoring champion - Carlos Hermosillo won the honour for three seasons in a row: 1993-94, 1994-95 and 1995-96.

Fast forward seven years, in the Verano 2002 tournament, the third scoring champion was Uruguayan Sebastián Abreu who finished with 19 goals.

The fourth player to achieve the feat was Argentine forward Emmanuel Villa in the 2009 Apertura championship with 17 goals and finally the fifth who had the honor was Uruguayan Jonathan Rodríguez with 12 goals in the Guard1anes 2020 tournament.

The player with the most champion titles is Brazilian Evanivaldo Castro Cabinho with eight, followed by Adalberto Dumbo López with five, Paraguayan José Cardozo, Sebastián Abreu and the Ecuadorian Christian Benítez, both with four.