FC Juarez Kicks Off 2022 Clausura Season Tonight

Bravos de FC Juarez will kick off their 2022 Clausura season tonight when they host Necaxa at Benito Juarez Olympic Stadium. The Bravos are looking to improve on a dismal 2021 Apertura season that saw them finish in the final places in the general standings table. 

FC Juarez had an intense preseason that began in the last days of November. They spent a couple of weeks in Acapulco as a part of that preseason effort. Ricardo “Tuca” Ferretti will start his second season with the Bravos, a season where his impact should be seen on the field of play and felt as far as results go immediately.

How the Bravos finished last season

Last season FC Juarez finished in 16th place in the general standings table (out of 18 teams), finishing ahead of only Queretaro and Xolos de Tijuana. They won four matches, had four draws and suffered nine loses. They only scored 14 goals in 17 matches and allowed 25.

A highlighted tendency with FC Juarez last year was their tendency to play their best games and obtain desired results against the best teams in the league. But they looked quite bad against teams that were not having a good season.

Bravos 2022 Clausura schedule

For this season the Bravos will play 9 of the 17 regular season matches at home. Prominent teams that will come to visit the Borderland over the course of the rest of this winter and throughout the spring include Chivas de Guadalajara, Pumas, Tigres and the defending champion Atlas.

Notable road games for FC Juarez include Club America, Cruz Azul and Monterrey. 

Offseason acquisitions

Thus far the Bravos have acquired four new players. The deadline to acquire international players is at the end of this month. The players acquired were 3 midfielders (Fernando Arce, Candido Perez and Anderson Leite) and one defender (Ventura Alvarado). 

It will be interesting to see who else Joaquin del Olmo the Bravos sporting director, along with Ferretti decide to bring onboard. 

What’s at stake

Once again, for the second year in a row, the Bravos will be fighting to not finish in the final three positions of the average points per game table in order to avoid a multi-million dollar fine. 

Last spring the Bravos paid over 2 million dollars as they finished in the third to last spot in this sort of relegation table. 

Starting this season, the Bravos find themselves dead last in this table. Over the summer clubs in Liga MX decided to decrease the monetary penalty to the three teams that finished in the last three places in this table by 30%.

Season Prediction

I think this season you will see the true effects of Ferretti being at the helm of this team. While the individual star power may not be there for the team from the Borderland I believe this unit can be a pleasant surprise this season.

Will they be championship contenders? Of course not.

Still, I feel this team has what it takes to fight for a wild card playoff spot and in the process distance themselves from the final three spots in the relegation/average points per game table to avoid that hefty fine at the end of the season.