Pumas opened the Apertura 2026 at home against Pachuca in Jornada 1, putting the new Pumas leader, Esteban Solari, face to face with the club he had left to join Club Universidad. The Liga MX matchup was played at the Estadio Olímpico Universitario and was part of the Saturday schedule.
The reason this game drew attention was not just the venue or the opening round. Solari arrived to lead Pumas into the tournament by meeting Pachuca immediately, and Benjamín Mora was the coach on the other side. That made the fixture feel like more than a first-day assignment: it was the first live test of a new Pumas project against the team tied to Solari’s move.
Keylor Navas and Salomón Rondón were part of the coverage around the match, underscoring the level of interest around a meeting that Liga MX placed at the center of its opening weekend. For Pumas, starting the Apertura 2026 at home meant the margin for a slow start was already small, and the setting gave the club an early chance to measure how quickly Solari could settle the team.
That is what gives the game its edge: the same coach who had been with Pachuca returned to see them from the opposite bench, now guiding Pumas in the first round of the season. The matchup carried the simple weight of an opening fixture and the sharper pull of a transfer in the technical area, with Club Universidad asking for an immediate result from a manager who knew the opponent well.
The final score was not confirmed in the coverage available here, which leaves the main question with the match itself rather than the storyline around it. What matters next is whether Pumas can turn this home opener into a platform for the rest of Jornada 1, because Solari’s return to Pachuca will be remembered less for the reunion than for whether it began with points.
