Saturday’s America-FC Juarez Match Postponed
Yesterday, shortly after noon, Liga BBVA MX announced that this Saturday’s match between Club America and FC Juarez has been postponed. The match will now take place on Wednesday, February 3rd according to the official statement.
The reason for the postponement is because of 6 positive COVID-19 tests for the team from Coapa (Coapa is a well known neighborhood in Mexico City where Club America’s team installations are located.). The league announced that 3 players tested positive, along with one assistant coach and 2 staff members.
Late yesterday evening the 3 players who tested positive were revealed to be star goalkeeper Memo Ochoa, midfielder Nicolas Benedetti, and Richard Sanchez. The players are reported to be symptomatic. Those symptoms are reported to be mild for all three players.
The postponement of this match complicates matters for the Bravos who were going to enter, without a doubt, the toughest 3 match stretch of their 2021 clausura season. The Bravos were scheduled to play America this Saturday and then Chivas de Guadalajara next Saturday. Both of these matches are on road before returning to face Tigres at home the following Friday.
Thus the team from the Borderland was going to face the two biggest, most popular teams in Mexican soccer on the road and the most successful team of the last decade at home all in a 13-day span. Now those three matches will take place over a 7-day span.
Easy to see who got the short end of the stick over the decision by the league to postpone the match.
Previously, matches have not been postponed when teams have a few positive tests. It’s safe to assume if the Bravos had it their way, they would want the match to go on as scheduled this Saturday.
As of Friday morning, the Bravos have not released a statement regarding the announcement by the league that the match was postponed.