When it was thought that Hugo Sánchez was enjoying his time away from the spotlight, an unexpected announcement from Spain confirmed that "Hugol" wants to keep his name in the headlines in some way, shape or form.

It turns out that Almería in Spain's La Liga is giving the former Mexican National Team head coach an opportunity to be a hero by counting on him to save them from relegation.

This wouldn't be the first time that a Mexican is being asked to help a squad stay in the Spanish top flight. After Javier Aguirre guided Mexico to the Round of 16 of the 2002 World Cup, Osasuna offered him the head coaching job. To make a long story short, Aguirre added a much-needed boost to the Pamplona side by not only helping it stay in La Liga, but also bolstering his value as a strategist. And I'm sure you know the rest of the story.

Without a doubt this will be a daunting task for Sánchez since the Andalusians don't have much of a budget to begin with. But at least a player already there has something in common with him, ties to Pumas UNAM. Esteban Solari, who had a brief but successful stint with UNAM in the Primera División de México, can count on getting strong consideration from the "Pentapichichi" since he is familiar with the Argentine's playing style.

At the time of the hiring of Sánchez, Almería stood in 16th place with 16 points, 25 back of Barcelona. There's doubts out there regarding the Mexican's ability to rescue his tarnished image after being fired as Mexico's coach. He couldn't figure out how to coach a talented "Tricolor" with a dozen players in Europe and failed miserably in his quest to help Mexico's Under-23 National Team reach the Beijing Games. And that team had decent players as well.

Perhaps this is what "Hugol" needs: to take the reigns of one of La Liga's most modest teams and place it permanently in the middle of the table. At the same time, he pumps up his market value and get one step closer to one of his dreams, to coach Real Madrid.

Four unanswered goals from Pachuca deflated Al Ahly's hopes of moving on to the next stage after a convincing 4-2 victory in extra time. The Tuzos, in their second appearance in the Club World Cup, left a much better impression after their feeble effort in Japan just last year.

Christian Giménez led the CONCACAF champions with two goals, leading a comeback that made a 2-0 deficit disappear.

Pachuca definitely showed some personality that was nonexistent in the first half and now wondering what coach Enrique Meza told his team at halftime.

The Tuzos advance to the semifinals where they will face Liga of Ecuador, a team that will be without key figures such as Enrique Vera and Joffre Guerrón that guided them to the Copa Libertadores title earlier this year.

Let's call this one a game now that Pachuca have distanced themselves from Al Ahly after a nice goal from Christian Giménez to make it 4-2. This is the second goal for "Chaco", who received a nice ball from Bruno Marioni in the 110th minute.

This game has exceeded expectations so far as Pachuca and Al Ahly finished regulation tied at 2-2. The Tuzos had several clear scoring opportunities that could have resulted in the game winner, including a shot that struck the near post.

I'm calling this match an instant classic since this is the first match in Club World Cup history to go to extra time.

Wow! Pachuca have come back from a 2-0 hole to even the score against Al Ahly in the 72nd after a perfect free kick from Christian Giménez to tive the Tuzos two uncontested goals.

This match is already making its case as one of the top games of the tournament.

Coach Meza made the third and final change for the Mexicans, sending in José María Cárdenas to take José Francisco Torres' spot.

Let's see if Pachuca can keep this up and not fall asleep in the closing minutes as it did last year.

Didn't think that I would see this, but Pachuca finally showed some life after a goal from Luis Montes just two minutes into the closing half. The Tuzos are now trailing Al Ahly 2-1.

Pachuca coach Enrique Meza made the right decision in taking out Fausto Pinto and Jaime Correa in favor of Juan Carlos Rojas and Montes, respectively. They certainly have a spark that they didn't have in the first half.

It appears that Pachuca haven't learned their lesson from last year's Club World Cup appearance. As opposed to last year's quarterfinal match, where the deciding goal that downed the Tuzos came in the closing minutes, the defending CONCACAF champions are looking like a second-rate team that doesn't belong on the same pitch as Al Ahly.

At the halftime intermission, Pachuca trailed 2-0, rendering their domination on ball possesion (64%) meaningless. The way that the Egytian side's first goal that made it 1-0 brought back memories of how Etoile du Sahel scored on the Tuzos a year ago. A counterattack did the job, only to have Fausto Pinto accidentally tap the ball into the back of the net. This clearly exposed Pachuca's inability to cover players that are collectively faster and stronger.

The African champions seized the opportunity to distance themselves from the Mexicans on an impeccable long ball from defender Mohamed Barakat to Flavio, who deftly controlled it with his shin, then defeating Miguel Calero in the 44th minute to increase the advantage to 2-0.

The Tuzos have various options to consider to get back into the contest like Gabriel Caballero and the Brazilian Cristian Correa, a relative unknown who suited up for the Tuzos just for this competition.

After coaching Chivas de Guadalajara for a brief period in 2005, Xabier Azkargorta did not exactly forget about one of Mexico's most popular teams altogether. It turns out that the former Chivas boss has been keeping an eye on a specific player-Patricio "Pato" Araujo, a midfielder that was part of Mexico's Under-17 national team that won it all three years ago.

According to a Spanish-language program heard in the United States, the current Valencia general manager will recommend that the La Liga side sign the 20-year-old Mexican. But Azkargorta will have to wait until Guadalajara concludes its participation in the SuperLiga and returns to Mexico for these talks to take place.

If Araujo ends up going to Valencia he would be the fourth member of the U-17 World Cup champion that would join a European side. The others are Carlos Vela, Giovani Dos Santos and Héctor Moreno.

This got my attention because Chivas is doing a good job of projecting the team at the international level and that this institution is starting to become one that exports players. It all started when  Carlos Salcido went from Guadalajara to PSV Eindhoven after the 2006 World Cup.

Half Time:

My prediction is holding true as Fluminense is back in this series, trailing Liga 2-1. The "Albos" started losing momentum following their only goal of this match.  They had to wait after the Tricolor scored twice on them to put scoring chances together again.

Flu boss Renato Gaúcho wanted to put in striker Dodo to play alongside Washington, but changed his mind after the team scoring a pair of unanswered goals.

Héctor Baldassi, the referee from Argentina, has been easy on the foul calls. He easily should have issued at least five bookings. Instead he showed only one of them, which went to fellow countryman, Liga striker Claudio Bieler.  If he lets this match get out of hand, tempers will flare and we will be shoving matches between the teams.

Here are the confirmed starting lineups for both Fluminense and Liga:

Fluminense: Fernando Henrique, Gabriel, Thiago Silva, Luiz Alberto, Júnior César, Ygor, Arouca, Cicero, Darío Conca, Thiago Neves and Washington

Liga: Francisco Cevallos, Renán Calle, Norberto Araujo, Jairo Campos, Joffre Guerrón, Enrique Vera, Patricio Urrutia, Luis Bolaños, Paul Ambrosi, Damián Manso and Claudio Bieler

Prediction: Fluminense 2, Liga 1 (Liga wins the Copa Libertadores on a 5-4 aggregate)