Monterrey Momentum: Amelia Valverde’s promising start to ‘daunting challenge’ – scout report

For those with an interest in the Mexican women’s game, the 2024 Clausura tournament (the second half of the 2023/24 Liga MX Femenil season) is already providing plenty of entertainment, with surprise results, tactical masterclasses and end-to-end action making it a thoroughly engrossing spectacle.

One of the teams that has attracted a lot of attention is Monterrey Femenil (nicknamed Las Rayadas), with them the subject of plenty of speculation prior to the Clausura kicking off as to whether they would have enough to challenge following the departures of several key names and how quickly new head coach Amelia Valverde, who led her native Costa Rica at last year’s Women’s World Cup, would have the desired impact.

With four wins and one draw from their opening five matches, the early signs have been very positive in both regards, with Valverde introducing a more direct style of play during her short time at the helm and leading to them currently sitting second in the table and “best of the rest” behind leaders Tigres Femenil.

This tactical analysis will take a closer look at what has changed in Monterrey’s performances, providing a breakdown firstly of their critical tactics during the Apertura tournament last year, where they made it to the play-off semi-finals before being knocked out by eventual champions Tigres, and then how Valverde has tweaked or changed things around to streamline their performances. The analysis will also point out the impact that some of their new signings have made on their play and will show how they have aided Valverde in implementing her vision.

Attacking threat

When watching Monterrey Femenil during the Apertura tournament, what was constantly clear was that they were very good at moving the ball around the pitch and at constructing sequences of play but that they left a lot to be desired whenever they moved into the final third. Therefore, ensuring that her new team was as clinical as possible needed to be at the top of Valverde’s to-do list following her arrival in Mexico’s second-largest city.

What tended to let them down more often than most was that they often saw their momentum ebb away as soon as they got into a promising position, with the result being that the final pass or cross rarely contained the same venom that the attack until then had been built on. In this case, that allowed Santos Laguna Femenil to easily bring the chance to an end, with midfielder Fátima Servín getting almost up to the goal line but then passing the ball into the goal area with little conviction and enabling defender Sheila Pulido to intercept it before it could reach one of her teammates.

Before being too critical, it is important to remember that Monterrey scored 41 times during the regular part of the Apertura tournament (an average of 2.4 times per game), so they deserve credit for that. However, with their total being 10 less than Tigres and leaving them 24 goals behind top scorers Club América Femenil, there is clearly still room for them to become even more productive, and that is what Valverde will have no doubt picked up on following her appointment.