America fire Lapuente after three matches

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.