Tuca Ferretti admits he wanted to coach Monterrey just to get even with Tigres front office

Some confessions catch you off guard, no filter at all. That's exactly what Ricardo "Tuca" Ferretti delivered in front of the cameras: he once wanted to coach Monterrey, Tigres' historic archrival, for no other reason than to settle an old score with the Tigres front office.

The Brazilian-Mexican spent eleven years in charge of the Tigres bench, a run that any fan from Nuevo Leon still looks back on fondly: 10 titles, including five Liga MX championships and one Concacaf Champions League. But all of that ended in 2021, when the front office decided to move on and part ways with him. And according to Tuca himself, that exit left a lingering grudge.

"I wanted to go to Rayados for payback against the front office, not against the fans, not against the players, against the front office," Ferretti said during episode 50 of Barbas y Bigotes, the segment on ESPN Mexico's YouTube channel. He made it clear, with no hedging, that his frustration was never with the fans or the locker room, but with the people who made the call to fire him.

The Other Side: Vucetich at the "Volcan"

The interview also gave Tuca a chance to weigh in on a recent development: Victor Manuel Vucetich's arrival at Tigres as interim coach. Not just any arrival, either, since the "Midas King" is practically synonymous with Monterrey, the club with which he won five titles (two Liga MX championships and three Concacaf Champions League crowns). For Ferretti, the lukewarm reception Vucetich got at the Tigres stadium was completely normal, almost textbook.

"For you to be able to fix this, you have to win, and that's how you start earning a bit of acceptance. You can't have peaks and valleys, you need to trend upward, and hopefully they get to enjoy a title. Right now Rayados have better chemistry, a better roster," the analyst explained, suggesting that he currently sees Monterrey ahead of Tigres in terms of squad depth and overall team function.

What stood out most, though, was the contrast he drew between the Tigres fan base of his golden era and the one today. According to him, back when he was coaching and the team was winning, there was a waiting list of 10,000 people looking to become season ticket holders. Today, five years after his departure, the reality is different.

"At Tigres, even while winning, they threw black jerseys at me, they booed me. They're very passionate, very demanding. Look at the Volcan, all the people who go. It's a shame that right now Tigres actually has tickets to sell, because the fans got a bit disillusioned, now there are 6,000, 7,000 season ticket holders. Before there was a line of 10,000"Ricardo "Tuca" Ferretti

Strange, isn't it? Even while winning, he couldn't escape the demands of a fan base he himself describes as passionate to the extreme. And now, as an analyst with the benefit of some distance, he gets to watch from the outside as his old club goes through a moment quite different from the one he left behind at the "Volcan."