Barely three weeks into the Guard1anes 2020 tournament and two coaches have been sacked due to poor results. The ironic part is that both coaches are from Guadalajara, Luis Fernando Tena, and now Rafael Puente Jr.
Atlas for various years has been labeled a low performing team in the Liga MX due to very poor results throughout many tournaments and at the start of the Guard1anes 2020, the evident story was looking as a repeated cycle until the front office decided to act quickly and fire Rafael Puente Jr. after a terrible start of three weeks of matches. Los Zorros fired him quickly after the 1-1 draw versus Atletico San Luis and made an official statement that enough was enough and that they had to move on without Puente Jr. for the remainder of the tournament.
They announced the move on Twitter:
Rafael Puente del Río is no longer the manager of Atlas FC. https://t.co/CkYqjC65r0
— Atlas FC EN (@AtlasFC_en) August 10, 2020
Puente’s numbers with Atlas since taking over in Clausura week 5 of 2020 were terrible and probably one of the worst throughout the year as now the jobless coach numbers were one win, one draw and seven losses in nine official games as the head coach of Atlas. Tallying a total of 18 goals against and only eight in favor. Yikes right? To make things a little more complicated the relationship with the coach and the team was not that great, as Puente placed the cards on the table and told the front office that he did not plan to continue with the team just a few months ago but after negotiation Puente stuck with the team until now.
If we rewind time just a tad bit to the beginning of this year, things did not look promising for Puente, as his first game was a 3-1 loss versus Monarcas Morelia (remember that team?) and it followed with four losses back to back that placed the target on Los Zorros. Luckily the full shame did not come for the team as we all know that the pandemic of the COVID-19 caused a premature stop of the Clausura 2020 where it could have probably ended Puente’s time with Atlas a bit earlier.
So it makes total sense on why now Atlas decided to move away from Puente and now search for a new coach for the Guard1anes 2020 tournament, in the meantime, the team will have an interim coach (seems a trending subject in the Liga MX every tournament right), who will be Ruben Duarte, who will take charge Los Zorros as they will welcome Toluca this Thursday night for the Jornada 4.
Who could be the next ideal coach for Atlas, surely we do not know but it will more than likely be a familiar face we all seen by now. Could that coach change Atlas identity, possibly but we will wait and see?