Joel Huiqui has Cruz Azul moving toward the Clausura 2026 semifinals after the club beat Atlas 4-2 on aggregate and set up a meeting with Chivas this week. The former defender, who took over as director técnico on April 22, 2026, has turned a shaky finish into a postseason surge in his first stretch in charge.
Huiqui’s side opened the playoffs by beating Atlas 3-2 in one quarterfinal and 1-0 in the other, a steadier result than the club had managed before he arrived. Cruz Azul also closed the regular season with a 4-1 win over Necaxa under Huiqui, a run that helped erase the memory of the nine-match winless spell that led to Nicolás Larcamón’s removal.
Larcamón was let go after going nine matches without a victory across Liga MX and the CONCACAF Champions Cup, leaving Cruz Azul to hand the dugout to a man whose name has long meant something different to Mexican fans. Huiqui is still widely remembered for the 2009 “muertinha” against Morelia, when he was down in the area and used his hand to push the ball away from goal. He later retired as a player in 2019, but his first major coaching charge has put him back at the center of the club’s biggest stage.
That rise carries a weight that goes beyond one postseason. Huiqui, born Joel Adrián Huiqui Andrade on February 18, 1983, in Ohuira, Sinaloa, came from a town of fewer than 3,000 inhabitants and worked his way through all of Cruz Azul’s youth stages after starting football at age eight. A primary school teacher first pointed him toward a private school in Los Mochis, and he later appeared as a youth World Cup player with Mexico. His only Liga MX title came 23 years ago, which makes this run feel less like a brief hot streak than a late chance to change the story around him.
The tension, though, is that Cruz Azul has reached this point without solving everything. The club still has Chivas ahead and is pursuing what amounts to its tenth Liga MX title, a number that will hang over every match from here. For Huiqui, the challenge is no longer whether the old memory of the handball can define him. It is whether he can carry Cruz Azul through the next round and turn a rescue into something lasting.
