Six days ago, this column asked whether Aleco Irarragorri was a real turnaround or a meme with a stadium. On Saturday, Santos Laguna beat Queretaro 5-0, won their fifth straight match and climbed to eighth place. The joke did not die. It changed sides.
Three Bottles of Napa, Please
The week began with a bet. Santos’ official account needled Queretaro on X and asked if they wanted something on the match. Queretaro president Marc Spiegel suggested wine. Aleco set the terms himself, in English:
“Well, let me do it in English. How about 3 bottles of wine ? If I win 3 from the US (Napa 😇) If you win 1 From Italy and 2 from Parras (Parvada 🥶) ? Do we have a Bet ? Regards 😇”
Spiegel accepted. Five goals later, he owes three bottles from Napa. He does his negotiating in the open, where everyone can screenshot it.
The Face at 0-0
Fourteen minutes in, the night nearly turned. Fran Villalba put an early penalty off the post, and the broadcast cameras went straight to the owner’s box. ESPN Deportes posted the grimace:
“¿QUÉ HIZO VILLIALBA? 😳 El español falló el penal que ponía a Santos con ventaja sobre Querétaro… La cara de Aleco Irarragorri lo dice todo…”
Then the flood. Tahiel Jiménez scored a hat-trick, Eduardo Aguirre and Javier Güémez scored too, Diego Reyes was sent off, and the league’s best defense left with a 5-0 defeat.
The Circus Is the Shield
Read the season this way: the circus is not a distraction from the football. It is a shield in front of it.
When Santos lost five straight to open the tournament, the story was not a broken midfield. It was about a president singing “Color Esperanza” at a party, and a rival club’s official accounts aimed the mockery at him, not his players.
The pattern held in the good weeks. He spent part of this one finding a dancing fan online and inviting him to join the halftime show. The spotlight keeps choosing the owner.
The Coach He Refused to Fire
Underneath the show sits the most conventional decision of his presidency. Santos took zero points from their first five rounds and one from their first seven. In Liga MX, that start ends coaching jobs almost by reflex.
This club knows the reflex: five coaches in under two years on his watch before this season. This time, no change in August and no change in September. Renato Paiva kept his job.
After win five, the cameras caught the president in the tunnel embracing the coach he refused to fire. The patience now has a streak attached to it.
Soy Aleco
The club documentary’s trailer arrived this week, and in it Aleco does his own myth-busting to camera:
“Yo no soy Chava Iglesias, yo soy Aleco. Quiero un equipo agresivo, que remonta, que sea como el del 2012. No como el Real Madrid, un Santos, el que remonta, que nadie apuesta por él y en el último minuto ¡BANG!”
I am not Chava Iglesias, I am Aleco. He wants an aggressive Santos that comes back like the 2012 side, the one nobody bets on, scoring at the death. BANG.
Then the promise: “Cuando seamos campeones, porque vamos a ser campeones, si no es en este torneo, en el que viene, pero el plan a cinco años es ser campeón.”
When we are champions, because we are going to be champions, this tournament or the next. The plan is a title inside five years.
The Fans Renamed It
One fan post after the fourth win summed up the mood: “Aleco Irarragorri está viviendo el sueño de todos los hombres. Es imposible que te caiga mal el Chava Iglesias de la Liga MX.”
Aleco is living every man’s dream. It is impossible to dislike the Chava Iglesias of Liga MX. Fans have a name for the swing now: the Efecto Aleco.
“Color Esperanza” has made the same journey, from mockery soundtrack to stadium anthem. The numbers explain it: zero points from the first five rounds, 16 from the 21 available since.
Eighth Place Is Not a Meme
Strip the show away and the table is real. Santos are eighth on 16 points, in the last direct Liguilla place. Tijuana, Pumas UNAM and Puebla are level on 16 behind them. Monterrey sit two back with a game on Sunday.
The test comes fast. Pumas UNAM visit Torreon on Wednesday, October 21, level on points. Then Tijuana away on October 25 and Necaxa at home on November 1.
Five wins is not a title. Nobody in Torreon has forgotten the last-place finishes, the paper bags or the hard decisions still to come in December.
But eighth place, a five-game streak and a president who kept his coach is a football position, not a storyline. The Efecto Aleco is real until the results say otherwise.
