After a draw in the first leg of the final in the Liga MX Guardianes 2020 tournament between León and Pumas, León has put itself in a prime position to break a curse this Sunday. That curse is the Super Leaders curse, which means that whichever team finished in first place in the general table during the regular season fails to win the league title.
The most recent team to finish first and crown itself as champions was Club America in Apertura 2014. Every team has failed since then, including León, which finished first in the Clausura 2019 but fell to Tigres in the final.
Ten straight teams have failed. Only nine teams have been able to break the curse.
The first-place team enjoys advantages in playing lower-seeded competition, and in cases of a draw, they enjoy qualification to the next round due to their higher seed.
León has enjoyed a fine campaign, only losing once all regular season and finishing with 40 points, eight points clear of second-place Pumas.
Pumas also were defeated only once but drew eight games therefore they finished second.
That one who defeated Pumas? Well, that would be León, the team they have to go through if they want to finish champions.
León looked to head into the second leg down a goal until Emmanuel Gigliotti made it square in the 89th minute and that included a León side that was down to 10 men.
If you told manager Ignacio Ambriz that his side needed to win one game at home to be crowned champion, he’d probably take that any day of the week. Pumas won’t go down without a fight and is capable of making huge comebacks as we all saw with their four-goal comeback against Cruz Azul.
Debates, whether that was more of a Pumas comeback or a Cruz Azul side pulling a classic case of Cruz Azuling, will probably continue on for years.
However, back to León, this side has finished just short in recent years. They’ve been so close to being at the top.
This team will finally get it done Sunday evening, and the first place from start to finish will rightfully be crowned champions.
