America fire Lapuente after three matches
Reuters - Wednesday 26 January 2011, 16:47
MEXICO CITY, Jan 26 (Reuters) - America's insatiable demand
for immediate results has led them to fire coach Manuel Lapuente
after only three matches of the Clausura championship.
Lapuente, coach of Mexico at the 1998 World Cup, picked up
only one point out of nine and was shown the door despite having
steered America to the semi-finals of the Apertura championship
in December.
He was replaced by Chilean Carlos Reinoso whose third spell
in charge starts on Saturday with a visit to championship
pacesetters Atlas, who have notched three wins.
"Manuel Lapuente ceased to be the coach of America club this
Tuesday. Carlos Reinoso will be presented on Wednesday as the
new coach of the Eagles," club owners Televisa, the Mexican
media giants, said in a statement.
"For now, we don't have the water round our necks, we're
calm and we want to get results," captain Pavel Pardo told
reporters.
America, one of Mexico's two most popular and powerful clubs
alongside Guadalajara, have won only two titles since their
golden era in the 1980s, one of them in one of Lapuente's
previous two stints.
Reinoso steered America, whose home is at the famous Azteca
stadium which hosted the 1970 and 1986 World Cup finals, to the
league title in 1983/84 and 1984/85, when there was one
championship per season, and also coached the Eagles in 1998.