FC Cincinnati are looking to turn the page quickly and rebound into the Concacaf Champions Cup this week as The Orange and Blue host a Liga MX giant at TQL Stadium on Thursday night.
In a rematch from 2025, Tigres UANL come to Cincinnati for the Round of 16 in the Concacaf Champions Cup with Leg One of the two-game series at home for FCC on Thursday, March 12. A spot in the quarterfinals is on the line, and FCC are looking to punch its ticket to that round for the first time in club history.
After a frustrating home loss in MLS play earlier in the week, The Orange and Blue are hoping to use this match as an opportunity to flip the script and move on from that defeat. While the defense has been solid thus far, conceding just two goals in five matches, the offense has struggled in league action, and the club enters this match without a goal in its last 180 minutes.
Head Coach Pat Noonan is looking for players to regain their confidence in this match and use this marquee matchup as an opportunity to rise to the moment.
“We're expecting another very difficult round,” Noonan said of their opponent, Tigres UANL. “They're a very well-balanced team. I think you can see they're well coached. A lot of the fluidity of their play and in and out of possession, I think it makes them very difficult to play against. You know, their league record hasn't been, I'm sure, as strong as they would like, but when you look at the actual games and performances and play, it's a very strong team.”
The rematch in the Round of 16 between The Orange and Blue and Tigres marks the third time in as many years that FCC have played a club from Monterrey, Mexico in the Concacaf Champions Cup and the first repeat opponent in the club’s tournament history. Last season, when the two sides met, Pavel Bucha and Evander scored, but Tigres advanced thanks to a late surge in the second leg.
“I think there's a little bit of a chip on our shoulder after they knocked us off last year, but it's kind of just about recognizing how important every moment is,” Miles Robinson said of how the team is preparing for this rematch. “Playing at home in the first game is definitely important, so we have to use that home field advantage to the best of our ability.”
With the series being a two-leg affair, no matter the score in this game, the series will continue one week later at Estadio Universitario, aka “El Volcán” one week later. On Wednesday, Pat Noonan reiterated a lesson he has taken from previous Round of 16 defeats: taking advantage of the home leg in the series is paramount to advancing when needing to go on the road to a place like El Volcán.
“I think in the last two years, we walked away feeling really good about the performances, but the scoreline wasn't in our favor going into the second leg. So we need to have a more favorable scoreline, whatever the performance looks like,” Noonan said Wednesday ahead of the match. “Of course we want it to be as strong as previous years, but this is a new year, a new group, and we need to have improvements from our last couple performances and have a better scoreline."
FC Cincinnati vs. Tigres UANL (Liga MX) – Thursday, March 12, 2026 – 8 p.m. ET – TQL Stadium
TV: FOX Sports 2 (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 the crucial first leg, FC Cincinnati have yet to win in this round in the prior two seasons, falling 1-0 at home to CF Monterrey in 2024 and drawing 1-1 last season.
In International Action
Thursday marks FC Cincinnati’s 12th all-time match against a Liga MX opponent in all competitions. The Orange and Blue are 4-4-3 in the previous 11 matches. Against Non-MLS opponents overall, since 2019, FC Cincinnati are 21-12-11 in 44 matches.
At TQL Stadium, FC Cincinnati is 4-2-3 against Liga MX opponents in all competitions.
Scouting Tigres UANL (6th in Liga MX, 5-4-1, 16pts)
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 10 games into their season, Tigres have had a mixed bag of results to start the year. While they won their most recent match against cross-town rivals CF Monterrey, AKA ‘Rayados’, they have lost three of their last five 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.
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.
