Tigres get their Leagues Cup campaign underway with a meeting against Puebla at the Shell Energy Stadium on Thursday morning.
The sides recorded contrasting results in their respective most recent outings but we expect a keenly-contested affair here nonetheless.
Match preview
© Imago
Tigres continued their fine start to the season with a 3-0 demolition of Santos Laguna at Estadio Laguna on Sunday.
Veljko Paunovic's men took the lead just past the hour mark through Andre-Pierre Gignac before goals from Ozziel Herrera and Nicolas Ibanez put the result beyond doubt.
Consequently, Los Auriazules have moved up to third place in the Liga MX table, level on points with Pumas and Cruz Azul in an early three-way battle for supremacy.
Next up is the challenge of an opposing outfit who are without a victory in the last six editions of this fixture across all competitions since the start of last year.
With a tough assignment against Inter Miami to follow Thursday's affair, Tigres now go in search of a morale-boosting victory in Houston.
Puebla suffered a third defeat in four matches as they fell to a 2-0 loss against Inter Miami in Sunday's encounter at the Chase Stadium.
Jose Manuel de la Torre's men were behind barely 10 minutes into the game courtesy of Matias Rojas's opener, after which Luis Suarez wrapped things up 18 minutes from time.
This came off the back of a 2-1 defeat against Atlas which left Los Camoteros 13th in the Liga MX table with four points from as many league matches so far.
Aiming to avoid what would be a second consecutive Leagues Cup exit at the group stage, Puebla know that anything less than a victory in this one could spell the end of their cup adventure.
Team News
Ozziel Herrera and Nicolas Ibanez will both be pushing for a place in Tigres' starting XI having come off the bench to good effect last time out.
Sebastian Cordova grabbed the winner in March's clash involving Thursday's opponents and will be looking to deliver the goods once again.
Diego Reyes recently left Puebla as a free agent and the goalkeeper is not available for selection in this one.
Forward Lucas Cavallini will need to be on song if his side are to emerge victorious having scored four of their last five goals.
Tigres possible starting lineup:
Tapia; Garza, Reyes, Pizarro, Aquino; Carioca, Gorriaran; Cordova, Vigon, Flores; Gignac
Puebla possible starting lineup:
Jimenez; Ferrareis, Gularte, Orona, Rodriguez; De Buen, Castillo, Herrera; Cavallini, Velasco, Ormeno
We say: Tigres 3-1 Puebla
Puebla have been dire at both ends of the pitch lately and we cannot see them getting a positive result here. We fancy Tigres to run out comfortable winners come the sound of the final whistle.
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Tigres win with a probability of 62.39%. A draw had a probability of 20% and a win for Puebla had a probability of 17.62%.
The most likely scoreline for a Tigres win was 2-1 with a probability of 9.89%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-0 (9.38%) and 1-0 (8.73%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (9.2%), while for a Puebla win it was 1-2 (4.85%). The actual scoreline of 2-1 was predicted with a 9.9% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted a 2-1 win for Tigres in this match and our team at Sports Mole correctly predicted the win for Tigres.
Adepoju Marvellous
