Puebla looks to climb back into contention with Espinoza in the 2026 Apertura

Second to last overall. That's how Puebla closed out the last tournament, an uncomfortable snapshot for a club that once ran with the best in the country. Now, with Gerardo Espinoza leading the project, La Franja is looking to rewrite that story in the 2026 Apertura, and the early matchdays offer reason for cautious optimism.

The start wasn't perfect, but it wasn't a disaster either. Puebla won on the road against FC Juarez 1-0 in Matchday 1, fell to Cruz Azul 2-1 in the second matchday, and drew 1-1 with Chivas at home. Then came a pleasant surprise: a 3-2 road win over Pachuca in Matchday 4, and to close out this stretch, a thriller at the Cuauhtemoc that ended 3-2 in Puebla's favor against Santos in Matchday 5. There have been ups and downs, sure, but there's a sense that the team is competing and refusing to fold, something that was hard to see in the previous tournament. Is it enough to dream big? It's still too early to say, but at least there's a foundation to build on.

What's coming up on the schedule

The schedule shows no mercy. Matchday 6 pits Puebla against America on August 29 at 7:00 pm (Mexico City time), a top-level test to gauge how much the team has grown. After that come Toluca (September 4), Necaxa (September 11), and Atlante (September 18), with the latter two broadcast on ESPN and Disney+. The tough stretch continues with Tigres on September 26 and Leon on October 9, the latter exclusively on ESPN and Disney+.

The rest of the schedule includes home and away matches against Tijuana (October 16), Monterrey (October 21, exclusively on ESPN and Disney+), Atlas (October 25), Pumas (October 30), Queretaro (November 8), and, to close out the regular phase, Atletico San Luis on November 20, also exclusively on ESPN and Disney+.

A history that carries weight

Puebla is no ordinary club within Liga MX. It was officially founded on May 7, 1944, at the initiative of Joaquin Diaz and Alfonso Sobero, and has since built an identity its fans defend with pride: they're called "enfranjados" precisely because of the stripe that runs across the club crest and jersey, a symbol that has evolved over the years into the blue ball surrounded by stars that represents the club today.

Its home, the Estadio Cuauhtemoc, was designed by the same architect behind the Azteca, Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, and opened in 1968. It's there that Puebla has lived its best nights, though the league titles have been frozen in time: La Franja's only two championships came in the 1982-83 and 1989-90 seasons. More than three decades of waiting have followed.

That, at bottom, is the real challenge of Espinoza's project: not just improving on the table compared to the previous tournament, but starting to bring Puebla back toward that part of Liga MX it hasn't visited seriously in a long time.