One point from seven matches, then 12 from four. Santos Laguna has squeezed almost its entire Apertura 2026 points haul into a month, just as Aleco Irarragorri approaches his second anniversary as president. It’s an encouraging run for an executive who has promised another championship, but a difficult opening to forget.
The 26-year-old took over on October 17, 2024, replacing Dante Elizalde. His father, Alejandro Irarragorri Gutiérrez, founded Orlegi, the group that owns Santos.
The winning sequence has brought eight goals and four conceded across victories over Juárez, Toluca, Pachuca and Atlético San Luis. Each match was decided by a single goal. Santos has been collecting points without putting much distance between itself and its opponents.
At Toluca, the margin concealed a dramatic recovery. Santos trailed by two goals before winning 3-2 on September 20, prompting an animated celebration from Irarragorri’s box at the Nemesio Diez. It was the second victory of the run, with wins over Pachuca and San Luis still to come.
After 11 matches, Santos stood 14th with 13 points. Four victories had changed the direction of its season, not erased the six defeats that preceded them. Irarragorri’s championship promise belongs to a much longer timeline: the club has won six league titles, the most recent in the Clausura 2018.
Aleco Irarragorri: the job behind the public personality
The young executive’s family connection and exuberant manner have invited comparisons with Chava Iglesias, the fictional club president in Netflix’s Club de Cuervos. Irarragorri has pushed back against that label in a newly circulating preview of an interview with Marco Abarca for Proyecto Escolar.
“Yo no soy Chava Iglesias, yo soy Aleco,” he says. In English: “I’m not Chava Iglesias. I’m Aleco.” He describes wanting an aggressive Santos team that can recover from losing positions, drawing on the club’s championship-winning side of 2012.
His reported experience before taking the presidency was largely on the business side of football. Alongside corporate-strategy work at Orlegi, he had a seven-month digital-marketing placement at Atlético Madrid in 2022. Celtic had hosted him as an intern in 2019. His earlier work at Santos consisted of temporary roles across departments.
Those placements gave him exposure to club operations, but running Santos is a different responsibility. The family connection explains his proximity to the institution; it can’t establish whether the decisions made under his presidency will produce a successful team.
The latest contribution came from a player Santos developed itself. Academy graduate Tahiel Jiménez scored both goals in the 2-1 win at Atlético San Luis on October 11, first heading in Ezequiel Bullaude’s delivery and then following up a save for the winner. Renato Paiva’s team had completed another comeback, this time through a striker progressing within the club.
Santos hosts Querétaro at the Estadio Corona on October 17, exactly two years after Irarragorri’s appointment. At his unveiling, he offered commitment rather than promises. Now he has pledged a championship, without specifying which tournament will deliver it. He reaches the anniversary with a recovering team and a more specific obligation to its supporters.
