Cruz Azul solidifies historical lead in Mexican soccer traveler

Cruz Azul rang up another nine games of championship in the Mexican soccer lineal race, expanding its total in the six-year tracking to 42. Not for nothing, the cement mixer won its first national title in 24 years in 2021.

Long before Cruz Azul broke a 24-year domestic championship drought by winning the 2021 Clausura, the big blue was leading Mexico historically in the lineal soccer championship, and the 2020-21 season maybe made that a little more firm.

Cruz began the season with four defenses of a title it won late in 2020, then ended the season with a five-game title that was still alive when the season ended. Cruz Azul will begin 2021-22 with the lineal championship.

The cement mixer now is up to 42 games of Mexican traveling title since tracking began in 2015-16.

León won one title in 2020-21 and held it for 11 games to win honors for the season as the leading lineal champ in Mexico. All-time, León is in second place with 30 games of championship.

After failing in four attempts to win the lineal in 2020-21, Club América fell to third place in the all-time standings with 20 games of championship.

Cruz Azul ends shortened 2019-20 with Mexican lineal

The best performances with the Mexican lineal soccer title in 2019-20 belonged to León and Pumas UNAM, but Cruz Azul held it when the games were ended because of coronavirus.

The 2019-20 Mexican soccer season was forced into cancellation after the games of March 15 because of the coronavirus pandemic, so it was shortened, though official.

The season ended with Cruz Azul on a three-game run with the title, pushing it's championship total in our five years of tracking to 33 games, the best total in Mexico.

León and Pumas UNAM each sustained runs of six games with this championship in 2019-20. León moved its all-time total up to 19, third in Mexico. UNAM hadn't won the title in five tries since ending a five-game reign in December 2015, so it's six game run puts it up to 11 games all-time.

Club América, the second-place team with 20 games of Mexican championship in the standings, took only one crack at it in 2019-20, losing, 1-0, at home against the cement mixer. Thus, Cruz Azul takes the Mexican lineal championship into the 2020-2021 season.

León holds lineal lead in Mexico, but not by much

As it often happens, the lineal championship in Mexican soccer is traveling frequently in 2019-20. León has the lead for this season, but it is precarious and the race remains wide open.

The linear soccer championship across Mexico in 2019-20 has been a pretty even affair, as is usually the case. At the start of February, it's still an open question which club will come up on top at the end of the season.

The leader, so far, is León, which pieced together a six-game championship in August and September. 

The second-longest title run of the year is active. Pumas UNAM won the title on the first day of the Clausura, downing Pachuca, 2-1, on January 12. After four games of title, Pumas still has it.

UNAM had failed in five championship attempts going back to December 2015, the end of its only other title, a five-game affair. 

With its six games of title in 2019-20, León has 19 all-time, shooting up to third place in the Mexican standings. Cruz Azul has the all-time Mexican lead with 30 games, including the first two games of this season. Club América is second-place historically with 20 games of the linear championship.

Cruz Azul climbs all-time Mexican traveler standings

Cruz Azul set several single-season marks with the Mexican traveling soccer championship in 2018-19, moving to the top of the all-time standings.

Most countries run their domestic top-level soccer seasons pretty much the same way. But Mexico isn't most countries.

Anywhere else, you're getting a straight double round-robin regular season without playoffs. But Mexico gives you, instead, two distinct single round-robin seasons, each with its own playoffs.

Because the spirit of all this was originally to juice the regular season, playoffs are included in only a very few of these domestic traveling championships around the world, generally because of special circumstances. But Mexico, with its set of playoffs in the middle of the season, gives us options.

Liga MX plays one season, the Apertura, starting in the summer and running through November, with championship playoffs in December. After the holidays, the Clausura opens up in January and runs into May, simply flipping the home/road assignments from the Apertura, before another round of championship playoffs.

In the first year of tracking Mexico, 2015-16, the idea was to end tracking at the end of the regular season, but include the playoffs that happen before then. So, the Apertura playoffs are included, but the Clausura playoffs are not. In the next two years, we left out playoffs altogether.

Starting with 2018-19, though, the decision was made to include all of the playoffs. It's a little strange because the playoffs are double-legged, but strangeness doesn't scare us. If your head's together, it's kind of fun. One strange feature of the double-legged playoffs is that the team coming out with the traveling championship might not be the team that advances in the playoffs. And vice versa.

That's precisely how the Mexican traveling title season ended. Cruz Azul took the title to the Clausura playoffs and lost the first game, 3-1, at Club América. But Cruz won the return match, 1-0, at its place. Club América advanced in the playoffs by 3-2 aggregation. But Cruz Azul regained the traveling title at the moment it was eliminated from the playoffs.

It was a fitting way to end the season. Cruz Azul won the Mexican traveling soccer championship early and often in 2018-19, a record-smashing season for the Cement Locomotive.

The Blue finished the year with 10 wins, 16 games of title and five championships, setting single-season marks for the four-year-old Mexican competition in all three columns. Even its totals not including the playoffs would have set those records.

All-time, Cruz Azul now leads all clubs with 28 games of title, scorching past Club América, which now is second with 20. UANL is third with 14 games, followed by Toluca and León, each with 13.

Club América hits 2018 running to take Mexican traveler lead

Club América and Cruz Azul were the dominant clubs across the Mexican traveling championship in 2017-18, with Club América moving to the all-time lead in the standings.

It took three years to get there, but Club América finally reached the top of the all-time standings for the Mexico traveling soccer championship with a vigorous run through 10 title defenses at the start of 2018.

These Millionaires of Mexico City captured the championship from Querétaro with a 1-0 road victory on Jan. 7 and didn't let go until March 17, when they fell, 2-1, at home against Toluca. That streak put América ahead of Cruz Azul, which brought the title into the season and defended it nine times before a blowout loss, 4-0, at Pachuca on Sept. 27.

So, Club America, the team with more domestic league titles, more FIFA recognized club trophies and more of just about anything else than any other club in Mexico, finally reached the top of the traveling championship, and did so grandly, moving to the top of the all-time table just when it won its first season title.

For the season, América compiled 11 games of title, ahead of Cruz Azul's nine. Toluca and Pachuca, which led a wide-open debut season in 2015-16, came in next with five and four, respectively.

All-time, América now has 16 games of title, followed by 13 each for Cruz Azul, Léon and UNAM. The latter two clubs dominated in 2016-17, but neither won a traveling championship in 2017-18. Toluca is fourth all-time with 11 titles, followed by nine for Pachuca.