Pumas UNAM in Guadalajara: 36 Years, Eight Years and Two Away Trips Without Huerta

At the eastern corner of Estadio Akron, the away section is only half full. Red seats sit exposed under the floodlights, a few flags draped over the railings, and on the other side the home drums lock into one another to form a wall of sound with no gaps in it. I have watched plenty of away matches in plenty of leagues, and one thing repeats itself in Guadalajara: the visiting team hears its own footsteps more than it wants to.

Pumas UNAM will make the trip to Guadalajara twice in a very short span. First against Chivas at the Akron. Then against Atlas. Both opponents belong to the group built to compete for the title, with squads and projects designed for exactly that. Pumas do not. Pumas are in the phase that people still describe with a polite phrase: a project under construction, in the hands of Esteban Solari.

There are stories that do not begin with a goal, but with a bench where someone is listened to for the first time. The story of these two trips begins with the list of absences.

César Huerta is likely to miss the Chivas match. Álvaro Angulo may return for the Atlas match. Between those two lines of information lies an entire tactical plan that has been broken and must be reassembled within a few days, in a city sitting roughly 1,566 metres above sea level, where the ball travels faster and legs tire sooner than people expect.

Two matches, two opponents, one city

In Mexican football, the word "fortaleza" is used to describe a home ground as a weapon. It does not live only in a packed stand; it lives in habit. Referees are human, away players are human, and the small decisions tend to lean toward the crowd that is roaring. For Pumas, Guadalajara is where that habit is measured in decades.

The historical data compiled by the Mexican press before this matchweek shows Pumas struggle particularly when travelling to Guadalajara. The 36-year run without a win at Chivas is the number most quoted, and it was broken only in 2026. Eight years on from that win, Solari's team walk into Estadio Akron with the same old question hanging over them.

On the other side of the city, Atlas are a different story running along the same track. Pumas have not beaten Atlas since 2026. That year, the semi-final between the two clubs became controversial because a collision involving Juan Ignacio Dinenno inside the penalty area was not given as a penalty. People can argue about the decision, but what cannot be argued is memory: a team walking into the next match with the feeling that something was taken from them.

What stands out is that the current circumstances of the three clubs are not balanced at all. Chivas and Atlas are two teams competing for the title, with squads and projects built to aim for it. Atlas have recently added Elías Montiel and Kevin Zenón, signings that show a club investing deliberately to consolidate its place among the leading group. Pumas arrive at the same ground as a team in rebuild.

Before this trip, Pumas beat León. That is no small psychological anchor, because in Mexico people believe in momentum almost as much as they believe in a formation. A win before two hostile away matches is worth more than three points: it gives the dressing room a reason to believe Solari's model is heading the right way, whatever the final outcome of the two trips turns out to be.

What is left when Huerta is absent

Pumas' biggest problem in Guadalajara is not a stadium curse, but the fact that this team enters two away fixtures with a squad thinner than its opponents in exactly the decisive position: the wide breaker.

César Huerta is Pumas' most dangerous attacker. He is the one who creates space by dragging the opposing full-back out of position, the one who forces an entire defensive system to lean to one side. When he is absent, Pumas lose the weapon every mid-table team needs on the road: a player capable of manufacturing a goal out of nothing.

The tactical consequences are specific. When Huerta starts, Pumas usually operate with a front three, with him as the breaker on the left or right flank and a midfielder behind him whose job is to feed the zone he occupies. When he is missing, the most logical option is to drop into a deeper block with two forwards, prioritising the distances between the lines and accepting less of the ball.

In other words, Pumas will no longer be sprinting. They will be walking, and they will have to learn to walk without being read.

The second problem lies in transition. Modern football in Liga MX depends increasingly on counter-attacks organised within three to five seconds of winning the ball. Without Huerta, Pumas lose the fastest runner in that transition. Pressure shifts onto the remaining forwards, and the consequence is that their counter-attacks are more easily snuffed out before they form, because there is no one capable of carrying the ball at speed.

The third problem is psychological. When an important player is absent, young players are often pushed onto the pitch out of necessity. That is the moment I care about most in matches like this: a name on the bench that the stands do not remember, suddenly called upon in the seventieth minute in front of a crowd screaming with twenty thousand voices. Some players grow up in that moment, and some disappear into it forever.

Atlas have changed, and Pumas must prepare for it

If the Chivas match is a survival exercise, the Atlas match is an exercise in recognition. Today's Atlas is a team that wants to control the ball, wants to attack through the flanks, and wants to turn its home ground into a place where it imposes the tempo.

Atlas' recruitment of Elías Montiel and Kevin Zenón says a great deal about their ambition. Signings like that are not made to play safe matches; they are made to take points off teams like Pumas. Structurally, this means Atlas will generate more one-on-one situations in wide areas, forcing the Pumas back line to choose between covering and holding position.

The tactical question for Pumas is clear: discipline at full-back. When a full-back is dragged too far from the centre-back axis, the space behind him becomes the shortest route to goal. When a full-back holds position too tightly, Atlas' attackers get time on the ball in dangerous zones. No option is free.

One point that gets less attention than it deserves: teams defending away from home in Mexico tend to concede a disproportionate share of goals from set pieces, especially indirect set pieces from wide areas. In an environment overwhelmed by noise, maintaining concentration inside the box is an underrated skill. If I had to pick one detail to watch in the Atlas match, it would be how Pumas organise their defending of corners at the two posts.

1,566 metres and the things that never show up in the stats sheet

Guadalajara sits roughly 1,566 metres above sea level. At that altitude the ball travels faster and further than at lower elevations, and thinner air makes deep breathing harder during repeated sprints. This is a variable away teams often misread: they assume the problem lies in the second half, when in reality it lies in the twentieth minute if they do not know how to pace themselves.

For a team playing two consecutive away matches in the same city, managing physical output becomes a tactical decision rather than a medical footnote. Solari will have to choose between pouring everything into the Chivas match to chase a result that could provide a jolt, and saving legs for the Atlas match — the one in which, according to early information, Pumas may have Huerta back.

Based on my experience watching matches, decisions like this are usually undervalued while the match is being played and then blown out of proportion once it ends. If Pumas lose both, people will say they are weak. If Pumas win one, people will say they were shrewd. The difference between those two verdicts is sometimes a single passage of play.

In the longest night, I learned to listen to the breathing of an empty stand. And in Guadalajara, that breathing belongs to the away team.

What does not belong to tactics

Here I need to be clear about something. There is no sign that Pumas, Chivas or Atlas are facing financial fair play problems, transfer registration issues, or any administrative sanction. The possibility that César Huerta misses the Chivas match but returns for the Atlas match looks like squad rotation or the management of a minor injury rather than a long suspension. This distinction matters, because football moves very quickly from "absent" to "crisis".

On the other hand, a different financial story is unfolding quietly. The fact that Atlas can sign players like Montiel and Zenón shows they are operating on a title-chasing budget. Pumas, as a club in rebuild, can hardly compete in the same market segment. In Mexican football this gap shows up most clearly in squad depth: a title contender can lose a key player and replace him with a player of comparable quality; a rebuilding team loses a key player and must replace him with an unproven youngster.

The value of a player does not lie on a price tag, but in what they dare to reclaim. For Pumas, "reclaiming" is not about winning gloriously at the Akron. It is about playing two away matches without collapsing inside the first thirty minutes.

Memory also needs to be put in its proper place. The collision involving Dinenno in the 2026 semi-final is still brought up whenever the two teams meet, and it has a genuine psychological effect. But it is also a trap: when players walk onto the pitch to correct the past, they tend to play with emotion rather than structure. For a striker like Dinenno, that kind of motivation can become a great performance, or a yellow card in the fifteenth minute for a challenge born of frustration.

A curse is the laziest way to tell a story

This is the part where I want to go against the majority.

The story that "Guadalajara is Pumas' nightmare" has real data behind it. The long run without a win at Chivas, the head-to-head record against Atlas since 2026, two opponents currently in the title-chasing group — all of it is true. But that way of telling the story is also very convenient for a lot of people, and that is exactly why it has lasted so long.

It is convenient for the media, because a story with a ready-made frame is easier to write than a match that has not happened yet. It is convenient for the coaching staff, because if failure can be explained by a historical curse, the pressure is far lighter than explaining it through selection choices. And it is convenient for supporters, because low expectations are a form of emotional insurance.

The blind spot lies elsewhere. Pumas' problem in Guadalajara is not a decades-long statistical run, but a squad structure maintained across several coaching regimes: a mid-table Liga MX club always enters big away matches with fewer attacking options than its opponent, and with a single creative player whose absence leaves the system with no exit route.

Once the problem is framed correctly, the statistical runs become consequences rather than causes. The 36-year run is the result of an operating model, not a supernatural force. Pumas' win at the Akron in 2026 did not break a curse, because there was no curse to break. There was a team that played well on a specific night.

The "nightmare" framing also hides another reality: Pumas are not the only club that suffers in Guadalajara. Many Liga MX clubs have poor away records against Chivas and Atlas, because both clubs have strong home traditions, large budgets and huge supporter bases. What makes Pumas' story more quoted is their own name: a club with deep history and a famous academy, which means every defeat of theirs is examined under the light of old expectations.

I once wrote something true in my own way, and then learned it was wrong in the world's way. After that, I understood that a true fact can still be used wrongly if it is placed inside too tight a narrative frame. The 36-year run is a true fact. Using it to say Pumas are "cursed" is using it wrongly.

Football in Mexico has a characteristic that keeps stories like this alive: the calendar is very short, the breaks between tournaments are very long, and the audience's memory is anchored to disconnected seasons. When each tournament has only seventeen rounds, a run of defeats across three tournaments can feel like a decade. The sense of time in Mexican football does not correspond to real time, and that makes "curses" feel heavier than they really are.

Another counter-intuitive angle: having both matches close together could actually help Pumas. When two fixtures sit back to back, rotation becomes a tactical tool, and opponents do not have enough time to prepare specifically for each scenario. If Pumas choose a consistent approach across both matches — a mid-block, quick transitions in wide areas, maximum use of set pieces — they can turn repetition into an advantage. Big clubs usually win by imposing difference; small clubs survive by creating familiarity.

Eight years is enough to measure a project

There is one detail in the data worth pausing on: the last time Pumas won at Chivas was 2026. Counting from that marker to now, eight years have passed. For a club with Pumas' tradition, eight years is long enough that luck can no longer explain it.

Over those eight years, Pumas changed coaches several times, changed a generation of players, and still have not solved the basic problem: how a club that is not among the richest in the league can take points at the ground of clubs that are. The answer, in most leagues around the world, lies in three things: defensive organisation, efficiency from set pieces, and the ability to keep the ball in order to reduce the minutes spent under pressure.

Pumas have potential in all three. They have a strong youth development tradition, which means they can produce players who accept tactical sacrifice. They have a large home ground, which means they are used to playing in front of big crowds — although away grounds remain a different problem. And they currently have a coach who has been given time, something that does not always happen in Liga MX.

What Pumas lack is depth in attacking positions. A team with only one genuine wide breaker will depend on that player's fitness all season long. When Huerta is fit, Pumas can play with three forwards and create chances out of nothing. When Huerta is missing, the team returns to a different shape, safer but more predictable.

This dependency is a structural issue, not a problem belonging only to the trip to Guadalajara.

About a misspelled name

I want to tell a small story, because it relates to how I follow matches like this.

In 2026, when I was a young reporter sent on assignment to a SEA Games tournament, I misspelled a player's name during the first half of a women's football final. It was only when she scored the opening goal that I noticed and had to correct it live on air. The match ended 2-1, and I still remember the mixture of embarrassment and relief when I saw the corrected name appear on screen.

Since then, I check proper names three times before publication. Montiel. Zenón. Angulo. Dinenno. Huerta. Solari. Five names and one surname, spelled correctly, assigned to the right team, at the right moment. It is the smallest task and also the one most easily skipped when people chase a big story.

But there is a deeper reason it comes back to me when I write about Guadalajara. In that final, what I remember most is not a goal but the moment after the final whistle, when the players sat down on the pitch and cried. Nobody writes about those seconds, because the scoreboard does not need them.

People count goals. I collect the times they fell and got up. And in Guadalajara, what I want to watch in Pumas is not whether they win, but how they get up after the first goal conceded. A team in rebuild can lose, but it cannot come apart.

The market and the numbers that never appear on the pitch

There is an economic dimension to these two matches that rarely gets mentioned, even though it shapes the experience of everyone involved.

Matches between Pumas and Chivas or Atlas are high-value television products in Mexico. The history of the rivalry combined with the derby nature generates an audience that a match between two mid-table clubs cannot produce. The broadcasters holding Liga MX rights benefit directly, which reinforces a reality: the hardest matches are often also the best-selling ones.

For the two host clubs, these are matchday-revenue fixtures. Pumas supporters travel to Guadalajara, buy tickets, buy shirts, eat around the stadium — all of it flowing into the host city's economy. In football, people talk constantly about away matches being a sporting disadvantage. Fewer people mention that they are also a flow of money out of the visiting club.

For players, market value can shift after a single match like this. César Huerta is a name the Mexico national team is tracking, and his absence from a big match is a data point that analysts use when assessing him. This is a permanent unfairness of football: players are judged by the matches they could not play.

What Pumas can reclaim

So what can Pumas bring home from Guadalajara?

A point. Two points. Or a well-organised lesson.

The scenarios are clear. The worst case is that Huerta fails to return for either match, Pumas lose both, and the losing run extends into another season, creating fresh pressure on Solari. The neutral case is that Pumas lose to Chivas but compete against Atlas, taking a point or losing narrowly, and the name mentioned afterwards is a young player who grew up in a difficult circumstance. The best case is that Pumas take at least a point at the Akron for the first time in eight years, or beat Atlas for the first time since 2026.

In all three scenarios, there is one thing Pumas control and that does not depend on luck: how they organise their defending in the first twenty minutes of each match. That is the window when the home crowd pours everything in, when referees are most susceptible, and when away teams are most likely to make mistakes. If Pumas get through that passage without breaking, they will have already secured a large share of the result.

That is the kind of win that never shows up on the scoreboard.

In the longest night, I learned to listen to the breathing of an empty stand. And on nights like the one at the Akron, the most important sound is not the drums of the home crowd, but the Pumas defenders calling to each other to hold their positions.

People will remember the result. I will remember how they stood. Because in football, a team under construction is not measured by what it wins, but by what it refuses to lose.