This week, we end the year with some more news from CONCACAF, focused on Mexico, Surinam and Trinidad and Tobago. Meanwhile, to start the new year next week, we will review the first third of the expanded A-League Women 2022/23 season in Australia, with some interesting story lines developing.

Tigres Femenil wins the AperturaChampionship again in Mexico and draws the largest television audience in the history of North American women's football.

Tigres Femenil won the Liga MX Femenil Apertura (Opening) Championship for the 2022/23 season. The first leg of the home and away final series between Tigres of Monterrey and Club América of Mexico City in the nation's capital had a total reach of 2.48 million viewers through Canal NUEVE (Nine) and, when combined with the 2.88 million viewers for the second leg in Monterrey gave a national television audience of 5.36 million for the two legs in November of 2022. The second leg match was the most watched women' football match in the history of North American football. Tigres also streams their games on their Facebook Live channel and, throughout the playoff matches, had over 400,000 impressions and up to just over 700,000 for the Finals, with live accounts ranging between 55,000 and 75,000 on the website.

Tigres shut out America across the two legs (1-0 away and 2-0 at home) and thus won their fifth title and also have nine of the ten highest attendances in the Liga MX Femenil league's history (which is now in its sixth season). Note: Mexico traditionally has an Apertura (Opening) and Clausura (Closing) of one round of games versus every other club in the league in each championship, plus playoffs, with the two winners meeting for the overall championship at the end of the season.

In addition to the record television figures, the Finals' first leg broke a new league attendance record with 52,654 fans in the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, while in the Estadio Universitario in Monterrey there was a full house with 41,615 fans for the second leg.

MATCHES WITH THE HIGHEST ATTENDANCE IN THE LIGA MX FEMENIL

Note: Rayadas is CF Monterrey while Chivas is based in Guadalajara

Tigres has boosted their bench with the arrival of their new Swedish-born assistant coach, Ann-Helén Grahm, who joined the coaching staff headed by Canadian Carmelina Moscato, who is in her first season with the club after coaching Nordsjaelland in Denmark. Grahm comes to Mexico after working as a Player Development Manager at the Football Association in Skane, Sweden. She also worked as a scout for international matches for Sweden.

She has also been an assistant coach for the National Teams of Finland, Scotland, and Sweden, in addition to managing club teams in her native country, including Stattena IF and Hammarby IF. Among her achievements, she was part of the technical staff of the Swedish women's national team that finished third in the 2011 World Cup in Germany, was an assistant coach during at the European Championship this summer in England with Finland and part of the Scotland WNT coaching staff at the 2017 Women's EURO in the Netherlands for the first time (and only time thus far) in their history.

2022-23 Liga MX Femenil Apertura Final Standings

The two legs Quarterfinals were played on October 27-28 and October 30-31, with the following results:

Guadalajara defeated Cruz Azul of Mexico City (1-0, 1-1; 2-1 on aggregate)

Monterrey advanced over Pachuca (1-2, 4-0; 5-2 on aggregate)

UANL (Tigres) blasted Toluca (4-0, 5-0 for 9-0 on aggregate)

Club America shut out Club Tijuana (1-0, 2-0; 3-0 on aggregate).

In the Semifinals held on November 4 and 7, Club America defeated Guadalajara (3-1, 3-3; 6-4 on aggregate), while Tigres narrowly edged fellow city derby side Monterrey (2-1, 2-2; 4-3).

The first leg of the Apertura Final was played on November11, and the second leg was played on November 14, 2022. Tigres bested America (1-0, 2-0; 3-0 on aggregate) for their 5th title. Aguilas (the Eagles) of Club America won their only league title in the Apertura in 2018 over Tigres and now has one Final defeat.

American Mia Fishel of Tigres led the first of the two tournaments in the 2022-23 Mexican Women's League season with 17 goals, one ahead of fellow American Christina Burkenroad of Monterrey (16). Mexican national team members Kiana Palacios of Club America was third with 13 goals and Charyn Corral of Pachuca was fourth with 12. Bea Parra of Spain and Atletico San Luis was the highest scoring European import with 10 goals for eighth on the table.

2022-23 Liga MX Femenil Apertura (Regular Season) Attendance Figures

Note that the following matches were played behind closed doors:

Monterrey played its match against Toluca behind closed doors due to the weather conditions presented in Monterrey area.
As a result of a large scale riot at a men's match on March 5, 2022, all Querétaro teams had to play their home matches behind closed doors for one year, until March 2023.

Mazatlan played its matches against Atletico San Luis and Pachuca behind closed doors due to Hurricane Orlene and logistical reasons, respectively.

Source: Liga MX Femenil

The total league average per game attendance for the 2022 Apertura is solid at just over 2,000 and well over most leagues in Europe, but only three clubs exceed the league average: the two Monterrey teams and Guadalajara. There is still potential for improvement for many of the teams, particularly for Northern Mexican sides—where the sport has always been more popular than in the South—such as Mazatlán, Tijuana and Juarez, with the latter two on the U.S. border near San Diego and El Paso, respectively, and should try to increase their cross-border traffic.

Surinam League Update

As of October 21, the 8-team women's league in Surinam was closely contested at the top between Merodia (24 points from 9 games) and Adjoema (23 points from 9 games). At the bottom of the table, Puwanani has 9 consecutive losses and only 1 goal scored with 12 allowed.

Forward Andaya Landveld (27—who has played with Surinam's U-20 and full national team) of Oema Soso leads the league goal scorers with 15 goals, followed by Cynthia Sital (30—also an international forward for Surinam who has played in the past in the Grenada Premier League) and Mervil Blatz (32—a international midfielder for Surinam), both of Dosko, with 13 and 9 goals respectively.

At the national team level, in their CONCACAF Regional W Championship Qualifying Group in February and April of 2022, Surinam was in a difficult group and finished Group A in third with 6 points, behind Mexico on 12 points and Puerto Rico with 9, but Surinam did defeat Antigua and Barbuda (3 points) and Anguilla (0 points), which is a good platform to build from for the future.

Trinidad and Tobago international Chelsi Jadoo is playing in Portugal

Trinidad & Tobago international defender Chelsi Jadoo (24) is currently playing with Portuguese Liga BIP team Valadares Gaia FC. She joined them in February of 2022 and had previously played in Portugal with Lank FC Vilaverdense. She started in all three matches for T&T at the CONCACAF W Championship in Monterrey last July, which doubled as the 2023 Women's World Cup regional final qualifiers. She appeared in two matches earlier in the year in CONCACAF preliminary qualifying, as T&T just edged out Guyana for a spot in the Finals in Mexico (see: The Week in Women's Football: CONCACAF Regional Championship - Group play review - Tribal Football).

Valadares Gaia are currently tied for sixth place in the twelve team Portuguese first division with a 3-2-4 (W-T-L) record for 11 points. Jadoo is a native of Ontario, Canada and played at Davis and Elkins College in West Virginia.

Tim Grainey is a contributor to Tribal Football. His latest book Beyond Bend it Like Beckham is on the global game of women's football. Get your copy today.

Follow Tim on Twitter: @TimGrainey