Tahiel Jiménez hat trick leads Santos Laguna to resounding 5-0 rout of Querétaro

Fran Villalba had the game's first goal at his feet in the 13th minute, but his penalty kick rattled off the right post. None of that mattered in the end: Santos Laguna went on to rout Querétaro 5-0 at Estadio Corona, with Tahiel Jiménez scoring once in each third of the match.

The Liga MX clash opened with early controversy. In the 11th minute, VAR awarded Santos Laguna a penalty for a handball by Lucas Abascia inside the box, but Villalba squandered the chance from the spot. The miss went unpunished as the home side kept pushing and eventually found its reward through open play: in the 28th minute, off a counterattack, Tahiel Jiménez finished with his left foot from close range to make it 1-0. Before halftime came the second goal, as Eduardo Aguirre curled a right-footed shot into the top corner off a Mauricio Cuevas cross to make it 2-0 in the 43rd minute, the score at the break.

In the second half, Querétaro pressed on the outside with shots from Mateo Coronel, Alí Ávila and Santiago Homenchenko, but none found the target. Santos Laguna, on the other hand, was ruthless: in the 62nd minute Tahiel Jiménez notched his second goal of the night, assisted by Ezequiel Bullaude, making it 3-0. Three minutes later, the match had another VAR episode: Diego Reyes had initially been shown a red card, but the decision was overturned, only for Reyes himself to be sent off directly in the 66th minute. Querétaro was down to ten men from that point on.

With the man advantage, Santos Laguna finished the job late. Javier Güémez converted a penalty in the 86th minute, awarded after Mono Martínez handled the ball inside the box, making it 4-0, and deep into stoppage time, in the 92nd minute, Tahiel Jiménez completed his hat trick with a close-range finish off a cross from Javier Abella, sealing the final 5-0 scoreline.

By the numbers

Santos Laguna's dominance was clear in the stats, though Querétaro didn't fall short on attempts:

Querétaro actually took more shots overall, but lacked precision: only two of its sixteen attempts hit the target, compared to five for Santos Laguna, which was far more clinical with the ball at its feet. According to our expected goals estimate, calculated from the shots taken in the match, Santos Laguna generated 4.40 xG to Querétaro's 2.04 xG, a gap that confirms the scoreline wasn't purely down to finishing, but also to the quality of chances created.

The result is a far cry from what our pre-match projection suggested, which gave Querétaro a 38% chance of winning against 31% for Santos Laguna and a 31% chance of a draw, with a combined expected goals total of 2.37 for both teams. Reality more than doubled that figure, and it all went one way.

In the standings, heading into this round Querétaro sat fifth with 20 points from 11 matches played, while Santos Laguna was eighth with 16 points from 12 appearances, a four-point gap between the two. The rout, however, paints a picture that contrasts sharply with those numbers: the lower-placed side was the one that settled the match with authority from the first half onward.

Among the night's headline storylines, alongside Tahiel Jiménez's hat trick, were Diego Reyes's red card following the VAR reversal and Fran Villalba's missed penalty, a moment that could have changed the script of the first half but which, in the end, Santos Laguna didn't need to turn in a flawless night at Estadio Corona.