Puebla came back four times to beat León 5-4 on Friday with a hat trick from Guillermo Martínez at the start of the sixteenth and penultimate day of the Mexican soccer Apertura tournament.
With the last-minute victory, Puebla reached 19 points to be momentarily in eleventh place and with the possibility of entering the “play-in”, an instance to which the clubs that occupy seventh to tenth place at the end of the 17 regular season days.
In the play-in, seventh place will face eighth and ninth place will face tenth. The winner of the first series will advance to the quarterfinals, while the loser will play the winner of the second series to define the last invitee to the postseason.
To the postseason or quarterfinals, where América and Tigres UANL already meet, the teams that occupy the first six places at the end of the regular season advance directly.
In the match played at the Cuauhtémoc stadium in Puebla, León took the lead after 10 minutes when the Uruguayan Federico Viñas scored from the right inside the area after the Uruguayan Nicolás López lowered the ball to him after a long throw-in.
Puebla equalized in the 19th minute through Martínez, who defined before the departure of goalkeeper Rodolfo Cota after controlling a pass from Diego de Buen.
León regained the lead in the 45th minute with a shot inside the six-yard box by López after a cross from Ecuadorian Ángel Mena.
A minute later, Viñas scored his double when he got ahead of a defender to finish with his left leg a cross sent by Iván Moreno from the left sector.
Puebla scored its second goal in the 51st minute with a double from Martínez, who headed a cross sent by Daniel Álvarez from the right wing.
The home team equalized in the 79th minute when De Buen headed a cross from the right sector.
Martínez scored his third goal in the 83rd minute with a shot inside the area after a pass from Argentine Horacio Carabajal.
León equalized in the 91st minute when Colombian Omar Fernández took advantage of an error in the defensive zone to define without a mark inside the six-yard box.
Miguel Sansores scored the winning goal for Puebla in the 93rd minute in a counterattack where he stole the ball in midfield from Argentine defender Adonis Frias, escaped due to speed and scored in the area before Cota left.
On Saturday, Tigres will face Atlético de San Luis, América will play against Tijuana, Guadalajara will be home against Cruz Azul and Monterrey will visit Pachuca.
The day will be completed on Sunday with the matches between Pumas UNAM-Atlas, Necaxa-Mazatlán, Santos Laguna-Toluca and Bravos de Ciudad Juárez-Querétaro.
Source: Ambito
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