Club América is the champion of CONCACAF and just touched down in Japan to represent the region at the Club World Cup. Spirits have been higher, though. The club is coming off a controversial defeat in Liga MX’s two-legged semifinal against inner-city rival Pumas.

América had hoped to force the league to reschedule the Apertura’s final, with Mexican media outlets already talking about the novelty of playing the round’s two legs around Christmas. Instead, Las Águilas disappointed, losing 4-3 over 180 minutes.

After seeing their team reduced to nine men in each game, Americanistas (as fans of the team are known) directed their animosity toward the officials, a convenient turn of events for Ignacio “Nacho” Ambriz. Somehow the América manager has escaped the brunt of any full-scale criticism. How his predecessors would’ve loved the same benefit of the doubt.

When Miguel Herrera left to take over the national team after leading the América to two straight finals, including the 2013 Clausura title, there was a big job to fill in América’s managerial box. Matching both the success and El Piojo charisma is no easy task:

The job fell to Antonio Mohamed, who took the reins and disappointed Americanists with elimination at the quarterfinal stage. The next tournament, however, the Argentine, who had won a title of his own with Tijuana, continued to put his own spin on the team, and América rolled to another title. However, even then, life wasn’t easy for the América coach. He clashed with club directors over trips to visit home and his style of play and eventually left the club.

So what do you do when you fire a title-winning coach who played a fun, attacking style? You bring in another title-winning coach with an attacking style. Enter Gustavo Matosas, who had led León to the two championships between Piojo’s Clausura 2013 win and Mohamed’s triumph in the 2014 Apertura. He did, indeed favor an attack style, and started favoring sharp dress as well (below), wearing bright blazers and donning tortoise-shell sunglasses. While you never would call Herrera a natty dresser, it seemed Matosas was trying to portray a cool that Herrera and Mohamed could not.

It didn’t work. Fans wanted more from Matosas and weren’t pleased with how the team looked during the Clausura. Despite lifting the CONCACAF Champions League trophy and earning a second-place regular season finish, América’s quarterfinal elimination at the hands of Pachuca spelled the end for Matosas. He was fired after just one campaign.

Ambriz came in to criticism that he didn’t have the personality or profile for the job, and some of those arguments may not have been far off. Team president Ricardo Peláez played with Ambriz at Necaxa, and fans pointed at this alliance in bringing in a coach that had won no championships.

Not only had Ambriz never won more than a third of the matches he oversaw before arriving in the capital, he had been fired from Querétaro midway through the previous campaign. The Gallos Blancos improved when they dropped Ambriz and brought in Victor Manuel Vucetich.

“I brought in a manager who hadn’t won anything, including going down with Veracruz: Miguel Herrera,” Peláez said at the news conference where Ambriz was announced. “Fortunately, we got into two semifinals, and in the third were champions.”

Those criticisms were heard by Ambriz, who said last month they motivated him: “I give thanks to those who talked about me, to those who criticized me, because they helped me a lot.”

But now, after a worse regular-season finish and another year without arriving in a final, expectations will be sky high, both that the Club World Cup is a success (Chivas owner Jorge Vergara derisively said the team was going over just to eat sushi and would soon be back in Mexico eating tacos) and that the team is a title contender in the Clausura.

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Would the team have been better off sticking with Matosas? It’s tough to say that, given the Uruguayan was fired from Atlas during the season. But it also seems possible that with the resources and squad América has, anyone could manage the team to a decent result.

Ambriz hasn’t done too well to maximize those resources. His decision to sit Dario Benedetto, one of the league’s best forwards, in the first leg against Pumas was puzzling. Plus, even though fans point to the soft nature of the four sending offs, América hardly was the picture of discipline in the regular season or later.

It all adds up to a team that has talent but plays like an inexperienced man is at the helm. Though he’s eluded Matosas’s heavy criticism and won’t conflict with the board like Mohamed, reaching the heights of Herrera won’t come easily. If he’s not lifting a trophy soon, Ambriz could join the cavalcade of coaches that have been marched out of Estadio Azteca.