Marco Marroquin: “We have to finish it off in Torreon”

TIJUANA - Notably happy, Marco Marroquin, the Club Tijuana Xoloitzcuintles de Caliente Under-17 manager spoke about his side’s win over Santos Laguna in the first leg match of the Apertura 2014 quarterfinals. The head coach highlighted the team’s energy and effort as well as the experienced gain by participating in the first playoffs, especially for the younger players.

“It is a great experience for the younger players,” said Marroquin. “I have a lot of youngsters up to two years younger than the age category. It’s good for them to know what these high intensity games are all about so that they can begin to understand what it is like in first division.

“I think that for the experience level it was a good showing,” Marroquin said. “But we are not done yet. We believe we can still give another important step forward.”

The win was not an easy one explained the coach. Santos presented a complicated game plan and created several goal-scoring opportunities. But the team was patient and imposed its own playing style and showed that they are capable of fighting out the category championship.

“Yes, it was a very difficult and complicated victory,” said Marroquin. “We know Santos is a good squad, they finished in the top part of the table and scored an important amount of goals for a reason. I think the boys realized today that we can go toe-to-toe with anyone and that we can go over there and get a positive result and go through to the next round. The intensity and intelligence with which we will play over there is going to be of the utmost importance.”

The series is still up for grabs, but Marroquin is comfortable with the lead obtained at the Caliente and will now look to finish things off in Torreon.

“I think that it is satisfactory for the boys to see their friends and families who came to the stadium despite the cold weather,” Marroquin said. “I hope they left happy with the effort. The team gave all they had, I think we might have even deserved another goal there but it is not about deserving, it is about scoring.”

Tomorrow the team will have a light workout as well as watch the game film in order to plan out an effective game plan for the return leg in Torreon.