América 3-2 Necaxa: Almada's Shield and the Numbers That Won't Stand Behind Erick Sánchez

The move started with Danny Leyva. Necaxa's midfielder received the ball in the inside channel, turned, and before he could lift his head Erick "Chiquito" Sánchez was already in his stride. The press forced Leyva into a mistake, the ball changed hands, and the sequence ended with Miguel Borja's goal for 3-2. América beat Necaxa 3-2. In the stands it was a moment worth remembering. On social media a few hours later, it barely existed.

What got mentioned instead were the lost balls, the duels not won, the backward passes. A sector of the América fanbase — not all of it, but loud enough — has decided that Chiquito Sánchez is this team's problem. And at the post-match press conference, Guillermo Almada decided not to stay silent. He spent most of his time defending one player, opening with something close to a declaration: "I want to make this clear."

That is the moment an ordinary Liga MX fixture turns into a file. And with a file, my rule does not change: a file does not lie; people build files to speak lies on their behalf. What stands out here is that both sides — Almada and the critical fan sector — are building files, and both have left them unfinished.

América sit at the top tier of Liga MX. Necaxa sit below. A 3-2 América win over Necaxa fits that order, but conceding twice and winning by a narrow margin is a friction signal. Apertura 2026 is a short tournament — each Liga MX season splits into Apertura and Clausura, with a Liguilla play-off at the end. That format compresses time and shortens patience. At a club whose minimum standard is near-perfection, every individual error is magnified under the lens; at a mid-tier club, the same performance would draw no comment.

Sánchez is no stranger to Almada. He played for Pachuca under the Uruguayan, and when Almada moved to América he brought a man he trusted with him. Sánchez is described as "one of his trusted men." He has started six Apertura 2026 matches — a number that says he is a structural piece, not a rotation option.

A coach trusting a player does not mean the data has to follow. That is where the two things must be separated.

Against Necaxa, Sánchez's statistical line read: 80% pass completion, five ball recoveries, four defensive contributions. This is volume data — it shows a player present in many situations, doing many jobs, not hiding from responsibility. For a two-way central midfielder, that defensive volume is a genuinely positive signal, not a number inflated for effect.

But in the duels, the story changes key. Sánchez won 4 of 9 ground duels, roughly 44%. He won 2 of 5 aerial duels, 40%. Both sit below the 50% break-even line I still use to assess a central midfielder at this level. In other words: he was present, he worked, but in direct physical contests he usually lost.

The crux of this match is not whether Sánchez played well or badly — it is that two data sets are saying two different things and nobody will read both.

The player Almada is using is not a pure holding midfielder. He is a pressing number eight, a shuttle runner between two zones, winning the ball and immediately joining the build-up. Almada framed Sánchez's value in two parts: defensive contribution and attacking contribution. That is functionally accurate. It is also deliberate: it shifts the evaluation from "does this player win duels" to "does this player connect the lines."

Tactically, the press that produced the 3-2 goal is a verifiable asset. It is a textbook case of a pressing midfielder turning a defensive action into a link in a scoring chain. Modern football prices that action very highly, because it never appears in the goals or assists columns yet decides results.

The problem lies elsewhere: both sides are competing to define a performance from a data sample of exactly one match.

Here I have to say plainly what neither Almada nor the critical fans want to hear. Almada's claim — that Sánchez was one of the best players on the pitch — is an opinion, not a validated trend. With a sample of one match, nobody can conclude anything about this player's true form. That 44% ground-duel figure could be the sign of a technical limitation, or it could be one bad day against a physical opponent. There is no second sample to compare against, so both readings stand on the same thin ground.

There is one point I find more notable than all of this, and it sits off the pitch. The fan pressure aimed at Sánchez is not tied to the team's results. América are winning. This is a reputational dynamic running independently of the table — and that kind of dynamic is usually more durable and harder to cure than a results crisis. A losing team can be fixed with substitutions. A settled prejudice about a player cannot be fixed with wins.

Almada's choice to speak at the exact moment of peak pressure is an act of opinion management. It serves two purposes. First, it protects the player's confidence. Second, it sends a signal to the dressing room: effort and loyalty will be defended, even when the stands turn away. That is a kind of spiritual contract a coach signs with his pupil.

But every contract has two parties carrying risk. By putting his personal credibility on the table to defend Sánchez, Almada has tied himself to the player's form. The transfer window is only a fair; the contract is where guilt gets verified. No contract is under investigation here, but there is a similar binding form: if Sánchez declines, it is not only the player who loses his place — the teacher's judgment comes under question too. And once a coach has publicly defended a player, he also loses the right to drop him quietly.

One more detail I always check before checking the scoreline: clean is not the same as transparent. One is the smell of perfume, the other is double-entry bookkeeping. A 3-2 win with two goals conceded to a lower-tier opponent sounds clean, but it is not transparent as a process. If América win by another narrow margin, the "Sánchez is the problem" story reactivates automatically, regardless of what he contributed.

On the opponent's side, Sánchez's technical file has one obvious gap: a duel win rate below 50%. Teams that play direct, favour long balls and physical contests will be the real test for him. If an opposing coach spots this and assigns a muscular midfielder to mark him tightly, Sánchez's value as a connector can be neutralised inside the first half. That is the most concrete tactical risk this match leaves behind.

Based on my experience watching matches, debates around a two-way midfielder rarely end with data. They end with a moment — a goal, a cut-out, a big game in which the stands are forced to fall silent.

What I will track for the rest of Apertura 2026 is not the comment sections but three dry indicators: whether Sánchez keeps starting full 90 minutes, whether his duel win rate crosses 50%, and whether América keep winning by a one-goal margin.

If all three hold, the fan sector is wrong — and wrong systematically. If all three reverse, Almada has built a shield around a man who cannot stand inside it. Football does not judge by emotion; it judges by sample. And the current sample is too small to conclude anything, while both sides are behaving as if it were already big enough.