Ricardo Ferretti was a proud coach after Tigres stunned Palmeiras to become the first CONCACAF team to reach a FIFA Club World Cup final at the Education City Stadium on Sunday. 
The Mexicans went into the game as underdogs against South American champions Palmeiras but Andre-Pierre Gignac was Tigres’ hero once again as his second-half penalty gave them a much-deserved 1-0 victory. 
Palmeiras struggled throughout and were indebted to goalkeeper Weverton for keeping the score blank in the first half. He displayed excellent reflexes to deny Tigres, with the pick of his saves a superb, instinctive stop to tip wide from Gignac’s curling, goal-bound right-foot shot.
The game was developing into something of a personal duel between Gignac and Weverton, in fact, and this continued in the second half when Tigres were awarded a penalty eight minutes after the restart. On this occasion, and while he guessed right, the Palmeiras keeper could not prevent the Frenchman’s powerfully-struck spot-kick finding the bottom-left corner.
“The victory gave us an opportunity to reach the final. We faced two great teams, and the next one will be also a great team, and we will face them in the same way,” Ferretti told bein Sports. 
“I feel calm and happy for the win and excited as everyone. I don’t like celebrating before time, we still have to play a game, and the most important one is the next one. Naturally we know how capable will be the team we will face. Now, we have to get ready, the players have to recover physically, but not emotionally because they feel good. We will get ready these days to reach the end goal,” he added.
It has been a case of third time lucky for Ferretti in his long association with Tigres. Trophy-less in his first spell in charge between 2000 and 2003, he returned for 27 games in 2006 before finally hitting the jackpot with the club in his third spell starting in 2010.
Tigres were in danger of being relegated at the time, but the man they call Tuca had a plan: not only would he save them from the drop, he would also take them to the very top. He has been true to his word.
Since then, Tigres have amassed nine trophies, winning Liga MX five times, the Copa MX once and the Campeon de Campeones (contested by the Apertura and Clausura winners each season) three times. The only trophy that had evaded the club over the last decade was the Concacaf Champions League, a competition in which they lost three finals between 2016 and 2019 before finally achieving the feat in 2020.
Now 66 and at the height of his powers, Ferretti is set for the biggest match of his career to date, one that began in 1991 and in which he has never gone a single season without coaching. The stage is set for the Brazilian coach to round off in style a decade in which he has won virtually everything there is to win. A stellar performance in a prestigious final would certainly achieve that. 
Meanwhile, Palmeiras head coach Abel Ferreira complained that the penalty decision was “dubious”, suggesting the tug by Luan on Carlos Gonzalez was not sufficient to justify a spot-kick.
“It was not a clear grab although it existed, but this is not basketball, they won a penalty and from there they defended themselves. We had some chances but we couldn’t get it right and I have to say that they were slightly superior,” he said. “We know we could do better individually. We came here on our own merit, we have a good mix of young and experienced players,” Ferreira added.