América rallies past Juárez 2-1 as Henry Martín scores twice in Liga MX

Club América did what was expected of it, though it took more work than anticipated. The club came away with a 2-1 win over Juárez at Estadio Olímpico Benito Juárez in a Liga MX matchup, thanks to a brace from Henry Martín that erased an early deficit set up by Óscar Estupiñán.

A start that exposed the league's bottom side

Juárez, which entered the match still searching for its first win of the tournament, struck first in the 32nd minute through Óscar Estupiñán, who met a cross from José Luis Rodríguez with a low shot just inside the left post, confirmed after a VAR review. The home side's lead lasted only five minutes, though: in the 37th minute, Henry Martín rose at point-blank range to head home the equalizer off a Kevin Álvarez cross that followed a quickly taken free kick. The teams went into the break tied at 1-1, with América already showing greater command of the ball in the first half despite the setback of conceding first.

The second half had barely settled into a rhythm when the home side was dealt another blow. In the 50th minute, the referee pointed to the spot for América after a VAR review flagged a handball by Javier Aquino inside the box, which also earned him a yellow card. Two minutes later, Henry Martín made no mistake from the penalty spot, curling his shot into the top corner to make it 1-2, a score that would hold up as the final result. Juárez pushed for an equalizer late on, with Estupiñán rattling the crossbar with a header in the 74th minute and firing another shot narrowly wide around the 80th, but the tying goal never came.

The numbers back up the visitors' control

The statistics make clear just how much América dominated the run of play and created the more dangerous chances over the ninety minutes.

The estimated xG calculated after the fact based on shot locations backs up that gap: 1.523 for Juárez compared to 2.199 for América, a sign that the visitors didn't just take more shots but produced better ones too.

What the preview said

Ahead of kickoff, our projections gave América an 85% chance of winning, against just 3% for Juárez and 12% for a draw, with expected goals set at 2.63 for the visitors versus only 0.38 for the home side. The final result lined up with that forecast in terms of the winner, though the path there was rockier than those numbers suggested: Juárez took the lead and held the deadlock for much of the first half before América's superiority eventually took over.

What the result means

For América, the win cements its strong standing in the tournament. According to the accumulated record, the club now has 13 points from 5 matches played, with 4 wins and 1 draw, numbers that keep it at the top of the table. Juárez, meanwhile, still hasn't managed a win: six losses in as many outings leave the club without a single point and with a goal difference of -12, the worst in the league, at the bottom of the standings. The gap of 13 points between the two sides in the table lays bare, starkly, the two very different realities that met at Estadio Olímpico Benito Juárez.