Antonio Briseño backs watertight Chivas to compete for Apertura honours | OneFootball

Antonio ‘Pollo’ Briseño believes Chivas are on their way to becoming a side that can challenge for the Liga MX title.

The Flock reached the quarter-finals of the 2022 Clausura before falling to neighbours and eventual champions Atlas.

It was not the worst outcome for the Guadalajara side after they had put Ricardo Cadena in temporary charge (now permanent head coach) after sacking Marcelo Michel Leaño in mid-April.

“In Chivas the demands are different, not just winning, but also liking and we are in that process,” centre-back Briseño told TUDN in an interview at the club’s pre-season camp.

“We have to go back to the basics. I think that a defensively more solid team is closer to being champion and at the end (of the last tournament) he achieved that, no goals were conceded and that made us closer to winning.”

Briseño, who started his career at Atlas, also contended that intense pressure at Chivas makes it more difficult to survive but also more rewarding.

“Here maybe it’s a little more difficult because of all the spotlight. You play a good game and they praise you as if you were God and that means that maybe it’s not true, nor when you lose are you the worst and they bury you and you’re the worst player in the world,” he said.

“We have to know how to play with that because it is difficult to be in Chivas. It is not for every player.”

Los Rojiblancos begin their Apertura campaign with a home date against Juárez on 2 July.