New York City Football Club host Atlas F.C. this Sunday in their first group game of Leagues Cup 2023.
To learn more about opponents we compiled a scout repot on Los Zorros.
Year Established: 1916
Major Honors
Liga MX: Winners: 1950-1951, Apertura 2021, Clausura 2022
Copa MX Winners: 1946, 1950, 1962, 1968
Campéon de Campeones: 1946, 1950, 1951, 1962, 2022
Nicknames
The club has a number of different nicknames including Loz Zorros (The Foxes) and La Academia, due in large part to the sheer number of successful Mexican internationals the club have produced.
Elsewhere, Los Rojinegroes is a nickname that alludes to the club’s colors, while La Furia (The Fury) and Las Margaritas (The Daisy Flowers) are also known nicknames of Atlas.
Club Legend
Atlas have had tremendous success with their academy. Three of the top five appearance makers for the Mexican national team started at Atlas – Andrés Guardado, Rafael Márquez, and Pável Pardo.
Márquez is the most notable name of that trio. The defender appeared 147 times for his country, and enjoyed successful spells with Monaco, Barcelona, and Léon. He both started and finished his playing career on the books of Atlas, calling time on his illustrious career in 2017.
Coach
Benjamin Mora Mendívil replaced Diego Cocca as head coach in October last year.
Mora Mendivil has well over a decade of experience coaching in soccer and began his career with Tijuana Reserves in 2011. His most significant role as a head coach has been with Malaysian outfit, Johor Darul Ta'zim F.C..
Mora arrived in Malaysia in 2015 and was promoted to the top job with Johor Darul Ta'zim F.C. in 2017.
While working for the Southern Tigers. Mora won four Malaysian Super League titles and a Malaysia Cup while in charge – making him the most successful coach in club history.
As well as domestic achievement, Mora also took his team to the knockout stage of the AFC Champions League for the first time ever. That success earned him the chance to take the job at Atlas in October last year.
Tactics
Tactically, Mora can best be described as flexible or pragmatic. While in charge of Atlas, he has utilized a variety of different systems, including both a back four and a back five, as well as both two forwards and a lone striker, depending on the situation at hand.
Mora’s success in Malaysia was built largely upon a 4-3-3 system, and he has attempted to install that during the opening weeks of the current Liga MX season.
His side prioritizes a short passing game whenever possible. When using the 4-3-3 system, central midfielders will attempt to drift out wide and create numerical supremacy which in turn can open space for the full back or winger down the side.
“The wide players do a lot of the moving of the ball and the defenders with the central midfielder acting almost like a traffic cop, providing an outlet to augment these movements,” Eugene Rupinski, a Mexican soccer writer, explained. “But the caveat there is they change things up all the time.”
Star Man
Up until very recently, the team’s star man would have been pitched as Julio Furch, but he recently relocated to Brazilian side Santos. That leaves Atlas without a physical, traditional, number nine.
Eduardo Aguirre – who is on loan from Santos Laguna – is likely to replace Furch in the team, but they are very different forwards.
“Where Julio Furch provided height and an aerial presence along with his physical presence, Eduardo "Mudo" Aguirre will be less threatening,” Rupinski added. “What Aguirre lacks in those departments however he makes up for in the ability to make smart, efficient runs into the box and knowing how and when to draw contact. While easier to contain physically than Furch, Aguirre will be much harder to keep up with in terms of dribbling ability and guile."
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