FC Juarez Looks to Advance Out of Leagues Cup Group Stage

Bravos de FC Juarez will be looking to advance out of the group stage of the inaugural Leagues Cup this Saturday night when they face Austin FC at Q2 Stadium in the Texas capital.

Head coach and technical director, Diego Mejia, called this weekend match “the most important match in the history of the club” on Friday morning when he met with the media

Austin FC fell in the opening match of the group stage to Mazatlan FC by the score of 3-1 last Friday. Meanwhile, the Bravos played Mazatlan to a 1-1 draw on Tuesday. This result advanced Mazatlan to the knockout stage of the tournament.

The team from the Borderland will join Mazatlan in the knockout stage with a win against Austin or a draw and a win in the penalty kick shootout. This sets up for a match on Saturday evening that will be intense as both teams will be looking to get the result to avoid being eliminated from the competition.

What the Bravos boss said

Mejia's general thoughts on Saturday's match: “It is a very nice match to play. To play against a team who has one of the best home environments in all of the MLS is always exciting. It will be a complicated match, but we are also calm because of what the team has demonstrated thus far. I’m happy with the execution and like I’ve been saying for some time now, we are enjoying the way we are going about building this team.”

Mejia’s thoughts on Austin FC: Their home field advantage is huge. Austin is a team that defends very well. They wait for you, and are looking for you to commit a mistake to counterattack. They have important, experienced players with a lot of speed up front that can maintain ball possession to create threats on goal. True is, full disclosure, we have been studying them for several days in assessing what we think this match will be for what we think will be an evenly disputed match. Whoever makes less mistakes will win the match.

The Austin FC-FC Juarez match is scheduled to kickoff at 6:30 p.m. MST an will be televised via streaming on Apple TV.