Chivas advance in CONCACAF Champions League with ‘Clásico Nacional’ on the cards

Chivas progress to the Round of 16 of the 2024 CONCACAF Champions Cup and could potentially face Club America in the next round. On Tuesday night, the Sacred Flock recorded their fifth consecutive win (including three in Liga MX) by beating Forge FC of Canada 2-1 and with an aggregate score of 5-2, the Guadalajara side progress to the next round where they will play the winners of Real Estelí of Nicaragua or América. The Central American side hold a 2-1 win from the first leg ahead of Wednesday’s game in the Mexican capital.

With a comfortable 3-1 advantage obtained in the first leg, Guadalajara were already a solid bet to progress and this prompted coach Fernando Gago to rest several of his regular starters.

Guadalajara started the stronger Jesús Sánchez going close early on before Gael García Bernal almost opened the scoring in the seventh minute for Chivas.

A minute later the home side were ahead as a header from Antonio Briseño was parried by the Forge goalkeeper but only for Erick Gutiérrez to pounce and send the Liga MX side into a 4-1 aggregate score.

With the early lead, Guadalajara sat back as Forge started to enjoy longer spells of possession with Terran Campbell going close before Kyle Bekker almost equalised before the break.

Guadalajara killed off any remote dreams Forge may have had about staging a dramatic comeback when José Castillo headed home and late on with all changes made, Guadalajara were forced to play with ten men as Raúl Martínez picked up an injury.

The Canadian team finally got a late consolation with Kevaughn Koné bagging the goal for the Canadian outfit. Another impressive performance from an ever confident Chivas side who will be tuning in attentively to discover their Round of 16 opponents from Real Estelí of Nicaragua or Club América.