Our lives are punctuated by football clubs. Or rather, our discovery of them. Like first loves and fleeting affairs, names conjure up distinct memories and sentiments: joy or sadness, awe or regret. In the 1970s, school playgrounds reverberated with the names of Saint Etienne, Borussia Mönchengladbach and – of course – Ajax. In the 80s, those in the know discussed Dinamo Tbilisi, Steaua Bucharest and IFK Gothenburg (long before the days of Göteborg). While the 90s gave us Parma, Rosenborg and Nayim’s Real Zaragoza.
The spate of new league winners at the turn of the Millenium brought us exotic names from familiar shores, like Deportivo La Coruña and Kaiserslautern. But the expanded Champions League format and the proliferation of satellite television seemed to be closing the door on these footballing supernovas. Then the 2000 Club World Cup came along.
On British shores, talk of the tournament centred around Manchester United spitting in the face of tradition by withdrawing from the FA Cup. The incumbent European Champions joined 1998 Intercontinental Cup winners Real Madrid in Brazil, both bound to stroll it against a string of flamboyantly named teams who couldn’t even make it into Actua Soccer: Vasco de Gama, Raja Casablanca and Necaxa.
Manchester United’s opener against Necaxa (who were playing in the red and white of Stoke City) would become particularly memorable for David Beckham’s sending off and Alex Ferguson’s post-match tirade against Argentine referee Horacio Elizondo. “I don’t think you’ll see him in many big games again”, Sir Alex said about the man who would go on to referee the 2006 World Cup Final. Dwight Yorke’s late equaliser would save the Red Devils’ blushes in a match largely dominated by the Mexican side before they froze at the pressure piled on them by the stream of Vasco de Gama supporters who had entered the Maracanã in anticipation of their own match against South Melbourne.
Necaxa finished third in the tournament, beating Real Madrid on penalties in the 3rd placed playoff. But the tournament signalled the end of an era for a club that had dominated Mexican football for a decade, with the last of their stalwarts now winding down their careers. The exception was 30-year-old Ecuadorian star Álex Aguinaga, who had scored against hosts Vasco de Gama in the tournament and would play on for another three years. His last home match for Necaxa was on 11 May 2003 against Veracruz, the club’s last ever home match at the Estadio Azteca.
Álex y sus hermanos
Rewind back to 1989, and Álex Aguinaga was a teenager playing for Deportivo Quito in Ecuador. At the time, the South American country had yet to make their mark on international football: the national team were yet to qualify for a World Cup; they were habitually early exiters at the Copa América; no Ecuadorian club had ever reached a Copa Libertadores final; and they hadn’t produced a world class player since Alberto Spencer.
Nevertheless, Aguinaga’s performances for club and country attracted the interest of Mexican giants Club América and their ambitious (if unfashionable) compatriots Necaxa. In the end, Aguinaga gave his word to Necaxa, a promise he was unwilling to go back on even when Milan’s Arrigo Sacchi and Fabio Capello came calling just as he was preparing to pack his bags for Mexico City.
In the season just passed, Necaxa had failed to qualify for the league championship playoffs, and not even the most optimistic of supporters would have surmised that the group of characters they were assembling would form the backbone of one of Mexico’s greatest ever club sides: goalkeeper Nicolás Navarro, Efraín Herrera, defensive lynchpin Nacho Ámbriz, Gerardo Esquivel, target man Ricardo Paláez and, twelve months later, Chilean Ivo Basay.
For five years, Los Rayos (the Lightning Bolts) promised much but delivered little, the highlight being a 1992 playoff semi-final defeat at the hands of Manuel Lapuente’s Puebla.
Don Manolo
The turning point came in 1994. That summer, the Mexican national team had exited the World Cup at the Last 16 stage, captained by Necaxa’s Nacho Ámbriz. The tournament had also thrown 27-year-old midfielder Alberto García Aspe into the spotlight. A succession of stellar performances was subdued by the disappointment of missing the vital penalty against Bulgaria. Italian clubs Cremonese and Genoa were interested, but Los Rayos held onto their prized possession and brought in two personalities around him who would make their name as giants of Mexican balompie: Manuel Lapuente and Luís Hernández.
Lapuente had coached Puebla to the league title twice. Known for his sturdy defence and spring-loaded attack, at Necaxa he found a group of players whose cohesion and quality in the final third made them ready for an assault on the title. The signing of Matador Hernández would prove the icing on the cake. Quick, agile and with his blond flowing locks, Hernández would find playing time limited in his opening months in Mexico City, but would nevertheless contribute with vital goals along the way.
Triumph in the ephemeral CONCACAF Cup Winners Cup was followed by a Copa México title in March. In the league, Necaxa cantered along in fourth place, hitting form just as the playoff began, with García Aspe getting on the scoresheet in knockout wins over Guadalajara-based sides Tecos and Chivas.
Necaxa are known as Los Electricistas (the Electricians) because they began life as the works team of a Mexico City power plant founded by Scotsman William H. Fraser. And sparks certainly flew in their 1994-95 playoff final against Cruz Azul, with both legs played at the Estadio Azteca (the home ground for both clubs) in front of 120,000 spectators. Following a 1-1 draw in the first leg, Necaxa put on a show in the second leg. Midway through the second half, Álex Aguinaga burst into the box to collect a backheel from Ricardo Paláez before rounding goalkeeper Norberto Scoponi and passing the ball into the net. The game was put out of reach by Ivo Basay in the second half. Los Rojiblancos had won their first league title in 56 years – a league, cup and continental treble that earned the title of Campeonísimo – and they’d down so with seven players who had been at the club since the start of the decade.
Another league title followed the next season, as Los Rayos topped their league group and marched all the way to the final, where they dispatched Emilio Butragueño’s Celaya – a provincial team whose own rags to near-riches story would see them dubbed the “Champions without a crown”. Ricardo Paláez was again the difference maker with a vital away goal.
Hernández y Blanco
But in a historically balanced league, Necaxa’s dominance couldn’t last forever. In the 1996-97 season, they were defeated in the final by a Jared Borgetti winner for Santos Laguna. Then, in the summer of 1997, the supergroup broke up as Lapuente left to coach the Mexican national team, García Aspe and Paláez were sold to Club América and Luís Hernández joined Boca Juniors on the explicit request of Diego Maradona.
Hernández had been a breakout star at the summer’s Copa América, but but at Boca, El Matador could only partner El Diego in continental competitions due to strict rules on foreigners. He returned to Necaxa after just six months, bringing home with him the nickname of El Pájaro, given to him in homage to fellow blonde-barneted Claudio Caniggia.
Waiting for Hernández in Mexico City was a certain Cuauhtémoc Blanco. The Concord-booted forward had joined Necaxa on loan from Club América in the summer to replace Hernández. The pair were no strangers, having ripped up the 1997 Copa América together, and they would soon form one the most iconic striking partnerships in World Cup history.
Initially, circumstances were on their side. The Mexican league had just adopted a short format of two 6-month tournaments, so Blanco and Hernández could immediately target the Verano 1998 title. Their success would be their downfall. Having fired Necaxa to second place in the regular season standings, both forwards were called up to Mexico’s pre-World Cup training camp just as the league championship playoffs were about to kick off. Necaxa succumbed to a full-strength Toluca in the final.
Los Rayos (without Hernández and Blanco) would win the title six months later. The blitzkreig nature of the final win over Chivas would make the match forever known in Guadalajara as El Jaliscazo. The much-heralded Team of the Decade’s time was coming to an end. And the victory over Real Madrid in the World Club Cup was to be their final send-off.
Exodus
On 5 August 2003, Necaxa moved into their new home at the Estadio Victoria in Aguascalientes: 300 miles from Mexico City. The inaugurating “friendly” against Capello’s Roma was a rare highlight in what would be a depressing first quarter of the century. In 2009, Los Electricistas were relegated, the start of a decade-long nightmare spent largely in the second tier, only ended by a 2018 Copa MX victory. The club now counts Mesut Ozil, Eva Longoria, Rob McElhenny and Ryan Reynolds among their shareholders, Nowhere do football dynasties shift more quickly than in Mexico, but lightning rarely strikes twice. Will it for Los Rayos?