Afonso Sosa New FC Juarez Head Coach

Wednesday evening FC Juarez executive president Guillermo Cantu announced Afonso Sosa as the team’s new head coach. This is Sosa’s second stint coaching in the Borderland as he was the head coach of the now defunct Indios de Ciudad Juarez from 2005-2007.

Sosa comes to Bravos after coaching most recently at Atletico San Luis and Necaxa in Liga BBVA MX. Sosa was also Necaxa’s head coach when he defeated FC Juarez in the promotion championship in the spring of 2016 that promoted Necaxa to first division.

Sosa’s contract with FC Juarez is for the remainder of the season (7 regular season matches and the playoffs if the Bravos earn a spot.).

As for what he said in the press conference, Sosa's message to the media revolved around two themes. The first theme was that the goal for the remainder of the season is to improve and accumulate as many points of the remaining 21 in order to avoid paying the multi-million dollar fine that will have to be paid for finishing in the final 3 places in the average points per match table. The Bravos currently find themselves in 3rd to last in this table and would be on the hook to pay a 2.6 million penalty/fine if the season ended today.

The second theme was the improvement of the entire team, first and foremost, from a psychological standpoint. Sosa commented, “When the results don’t pan out for a team, such as has been the case recently for this team, the first thing you need to address is the team’s confidence. That is priority number one. Coming in, I see a team with a lot of capacity and resolve...but you have to address what’s between the ears.”

These are the two themes that Sosa reiterated throughout the press conference Q & A which lasted for over 20 minutes.

Sosa's first match as head coach for FC Juarez was tonight against Necaxa, who just had a head coach change themselves this week, and Los Bravos lost by a score of 1-0.