🦅 América's Messi gambit is going to work out totally fine
Miami is the priority for Jardine's champions PLUS: Concacaf's big bet + MIGUEL HERRERA IS BACK
Despite best intentions, resolutions and efforts, 2025 probably looks a lot like 2024 after two weeks. That is, unless you’re a casual Club América fan.
The thousands who fit into this category flipped on Las Aguilas’ Liga MX-opening match and rather than the stars of their back-to-back-to-back championship team saw a bunch of children in América shirts. Ex-Pachuca midfielder Erick Sanchez, veteran center back Nestor Araujo and No. 2 goalkeeper Rodolfo Cota are the only players recognizable to even the most ardent América supporters - and in the minority of players in that they don’t have a three-digit number, assigned to players in Mexican clubs’ academies.
An alternate América squad opened the Liga MX season Friday and will play again this week as the first team trains in the United States.
The club’s maneuvers to start 2025 can be disorienting even for hardcore fans. América’s social media accounts are simultaneously talking about preseason beginning in San Diego and getting tickets for Thursday’s week two matchup in Mexico City against Tijuana1. Yet, the team is celebrating its third Liga MX title with fans the day it gets back to Mexico on January 19.
Everything will go back to normal after Saturday, when América meets Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami in a preseason friendly in Las Vegas. Well, preseason for the MLS team. Until then, it’s América B playing the first two weeks of the Liga MX season and América A enjoying the Southern California weather, conducting preseason training and trying to give fans at Allegiant Stadium a great show.