FC Cincinnati head into the week with a chance at glory and team history. After a 3-0 victory last week in the first leg, The Orange and Blue travel to “El Volcan” Thursday night to take on Tigres UANL of Liga MX in Leg Two of their Concacaf Champions Cup matchup with the Mexican giants.
With the matchup set for Thursday night at Estadio Universitario, AKA “The Volcano,” in this Round of 16 matchup but have to see it out to advance to the quarterfinals for the first time in club history. Last year, FC Cincinnati fell in the final moments of their match with Tigres and did not advance. Now, with a lead and a chip still on their shoulders, they head south looking to make things right and advance.
“We haven't gone into a second leg at this stage of the competition with this score line,” FC Cincinnati Head Coach Pat Noonan. “We did a better job in the first leg than we have previously, and now the goal is to go in and finish the job. We know the difficulty that we will be faced with a very motivated opponent to put us under pressure. So I think game management becomes very important with how you start the game, how you recognize what might look different from leg one and and still understand the importance of playing and playing with confidence.”
FC Cincinnati have been to this place, and even been in this situation before, but never quite like this. In each of the previous two seasons, FCC have gone to Mexico needing a result to advance, but both times they have been either down or level entering the match. This year, they begin not only with a lead, but with a multi-goal lead to defend. The situation is more like FC Cincinnati’s first-round matches, but in those matches, they were returning home for the second leg.
This group is all too familiar with the experience of playing at Tigres UANL’s home grounds, aptly nicknamed “El Volcan” for the eruptions the home supporters can provide. One year ago, FC Cincinnati took a 1-0 lead early in the second leg there, but were knocked off late behind a deafening crown. This year The Orange and Blue know exactly what they are getting into, and intend to be ready to deal with it.
“I think the team is good. We are ready to go and compete there,” midfielder Pavel Bucha said Wednesday ahead of the match. “We played there almost with the same team, same personnel in our team. So I think that that was a great experience. We know the environment there now, and I think that that could help us and I think we are ready for it now.”
“It allows guys to understand the environment and what the conditions look like with the fan base, with the field dimensions, all of those things,” Noonan explained. “Now it's a different score line, so we have to be prepared for them to try to be on top of play early on and try to get the goal. So for us, understanding the importance of good defensive structure, seeing you know how aggressive their approach is, understanding that a goal is very important on the road, and you know, we'll try to have a good balance of how we defend against the ball, but knowing that we still have to attack and we still have to look for that goal.”
Coming off a somewhat humbling road loss in league play this weekend, FCC are now looking for redemption. With the stakes as high as they are, there is no better match than to find their form and put the weekend loss in the review mirror.
“I think that game showed us a lot in New England, and I think we will have to go again and get back to it,” Bucha added. “We had, I think, great conversation as a group. With all the coaches and players, an honest conversation. So I think we talked some things through and I think right now we are just with our minds fully focused on the game in Mexico.”
Advancement to the quarterfinals of the Concacaf Champions Cup would be a first for FC Cincinnati and would set up a match with a more familiar foe. On the other side of FCC’s bracket are the Seattle Sounders and Vancouver Whitecaps, the winner of which would face off with The Orange and Blue. While there are too many details surrounding the order of matches or the dates, we do know that the Leg One match would be between April 7 and 9, while the Leg Two finale would be between April 14 and 16.
“I think the right approach is that it doesn't change the way you play. So for me, I'm thinking about it like the first game doesn't exist for us,” Bucha said Wednesday of the approach to a match when entering with a 3-0 lead. “That result from the first game doesn't mean anything for us right now. It's like a whole new game, and we have to fight very hard for the result there and try to win, not to play like we're calculating (the score). Just play there with all we've got and play for the win.”
FC Cincinnati at Tigres UANL (Liga MX) – Thursday, March 19, 2026 – 9 p.m. ET – Estadio Universitaro
TV: FOX Sports One (English) and TUDN (Spanish)
Stream: FOX Sports App, FOXSports.com (English) and ViX (Spanish)
Radio: FOX Sports 1360
A rematch with Tigres
For the third consecutive season, FC Cincinnati advanced past Round One of the Concacaf Champions Cup and enter the Round of 16. For the second straight year, it is Mexican club Tigres UANL that The Orange and Blue will face in this stage of the competition. In 2025, Tigres secured a 1-1 draw in Leg One at TQL Stadium and won 3-1 at home to win on aggregate, 4-2.
In International Action
FC Cincinnati earned its first ever Concacaf Champions Cup victory over a Liga MX opponent in Leg One of this Round of 16 series with Tigres UNAL, winning 3-0 and positioning themselves well to advance to the Quarterfinals.
Thursday marks FC Cincinnati’s 13th all-time match against a Liga MX opponent in all competitions, and The Orange and Blue are 5-4-3 in the previous 11 matches. Against Non-MLS opponents overall, since 2019, FC Cincinnati are 22-12-11 in 45 matches.
Scouting Tigres UANL (6th in Liga MX Clausura, 5-4-2, 17pts)
After a 3-0 defeat in Leg One of the series with FC Cincinnati, Tigres UANL will be desperately looking to battle their way back into this matchup and earn passage to the quarterfinals. They are in a poor run of form as after the 3-0 defeat at TQL Stadium, Tigres hosted Querétaro FC and played them to a scoreless draw.
Tigres UANL enter the 2026 Concacaf Champions Cup looking to win their second continental title after taking the crown in 2020 and finishing as runners-up in three of the last 10 tournaments.
Already 11 games into their season, Tigres have had a mixed bag of results to start the year. Their most marquee victory is a recent match against cross-town rivals CF Monterrey, AKA ‘Rayados’, but they have only won two of their last five league matches.
In Round One of the Concacaf Champions Cup, Tigres travelled to Canada to play Forge FC of the Canadian Premier League. Forge kept things even at nil-nil in leg one, but could not hold the line in the return match in Mexico, falling 4-1 and securing Tigres' path forward.
Head Coach Guido Pizarro leads the side. The former Tigres midfielder notably took over the job one day prior to playing FC Cincinnati last season and just three days after starting at midfield for the side in a Liga MX match. The now manager appeared for Tigres over 350 times over 12 years before moving into his new role on the bench.
In his first year with the club, Argentine midfielder Ángel Correa has been the standout offensive star for Tigres, earning 18 goal contributions across the Apertura and Clausura seasons. Joining from Spanish giant Atletico Madrid of La Liga, the 31-year-old leads all outfield players in minutes played across those two seasons as well.
His chief running mate is another Argentine international, now in his third year with Tigres after playing in Italy and England, Juan Brunetta. The attacking midfielder has tallied 16 goal contributions in 27 matches, five of which have come in the 2026 Clausura season.
On the defensive side of the ball, Tigres has an assortment of defenders they rely on, but most commonly turn to Brazilian center back Romulo and Mexican center back Jesús Angelo. The duo has appeared together in each of the last four Liga MX matches for Tigres. Fellow Brazilian defender Joaquim is another of the trusted group, but had been out on red card suspension. In Tigres' match over the week against Rayados, the three played together in a back three.
A notable defensive absence from their roster could be center back Juan Purata, who exited the match against FC Cincinnati with an injury in the 21st minute and did not appear in their subsequent Liga MX match.
Most often, Tigres deploys a 4-2-3-1 formation, doing so in all of their matches in 2026 except for this most recent match where they shifted to a 5-4-1 formation. The shape typically has the two Argentine midfielders along the midfield, with the third attacking midfielder rotating between a few options. The three are most commonly underneath Rodrigo Aguirre, a Uruguayan forward who joined the club at the start of 2026 but has played in Liga MX for six years with Rayados, Club America and Necaxa.
In net for Tigres is a veteran and club legend. Argentine keeper Nahuel Guzman, known equally for his antics as for his quality, joined Tigres in 2014 and is nearing 400 appearances for the side. Guzman appeared in both matches against FC Cincinnati in 2025, making four saves in Leg One to keep the game level heading into Leg Two.
