After a three-month span of 42 regular season games and four playoff games, Mexico’s Liga de Futbol Americano Profesional has reached the season finale, Tazón México V, pitting the Fundidores de Monterrey and the underdog Gallos Negros de Querétaro.
The game is set to be played in Estadio Caliente in Tijuana and will definitely be a battle between two teams that no one picked to reach the championship final when the season kicked off.
This game is a rematch of their Week 5 contest which was a low scoring, well played defensive battle. The Gallos Negros had the lead for much of the second half, but in the last two minutes, Fundidores quarterback Shelton Eppler engineered a clutch, game-winning drive, as he did in the semifinal against the Raptors, giving Monterrey a 13-10 victory.
The Fundidores have been a nice story this season finishing the regular season with a 4-2 record and reaching the playoffs as the number two seed. Eppler has been pegged as the MVP frontrunner and has led one of the league’s best offenses this year. Monterrey’s passing game has also been highlighted by wide receiver, Torin Justice who led the league in touchdowns and scoring with 42 points in total. The Fundidores have gained a reputation for their resilience and have played their best football when the game was on the line, with a total of three game-winning drives in the final minutes or seconds of the game.
The Gallos Negros by comparison, have been this season’s underdog, with most experts predicting a quick exit in the first round of the playoffs. The former Condors were christened as a de facto expansion team who charged out of the gates at the start of the season with a blowout victory against the winless Galgos. Unfortunately for Querétaro, they would lose the rest of their five regular season games, with the final four games being decided by single digits. The good news was that, thanks to the addition of the wild card round, they were still able to make the playoffs as the number six seed. The old Condors spirit was rekindled at the right time for them as their stout defense was able to take advantage of missed opportunities from the Mexicas and Dinos and thus they became historic as the first team to reach the Tazón México after winning back-to-back road playoff games.
Fundidores de Monterrey v Gallos Negros de Querétaro
May 21 7 PM PDT (10 pm ET, 04:00 May 22 CET)
