At a club where the last two semesters have ended the same ugly way — quarterfinal elimination, first by Club de Fútbol Monterrey in Apertura 2025 and then by Pumas de la UNAM in Clausura 2026 — even small selection news matters. And this one is simple: before America Vs Santos, Alan Cervantes has already served his suspension, which means América will not have that particular headache hanging over Guillermo Almada.
That might sound minor on paper. It is not. When a new era is supposed to be taking shape, availability becomes part of the story, and América cannot afford to treat anything as trivial after back-to-back exits that exposed just how little margin for error they had.
Alan Cervantes is back in the mix
The key detail is straightforward. Cervantes had been suspended after his red card against Querétaro in América’s 1-0 win, but that ban has now been fully served. So when the club lines up against Santos Laguna, he is available again. No drama. No lingering punishment. No late selection twist.
That matters because América’s recent results under Guillermo Almada have not exactly screamed control. The first match of his spell was the 1-0 win over Querétaro. The second was a 1-1 draw with Atlante. Solid enough starts, yes, but hardly the sort of sequence that lets a big club relax. If anything, it underlines how carefully every squad decision has to be managed while the new project settles.
Why this availability update matters
América have also only added one loan signing, Óscar Perea, which only increases the importance of getting the existing pieces in order. That is the reality of a squad-building phase like this: when the market has not delivered a flood of reinforcements, the players already in the building carry even more weight.
So the good news before Santos Laguna is not just that Cervantes is back. It is that Almada at least gets to choose from a cleaner deck. After the frustration of those quarterfinal eliminations in the previous two semesters, América need control, rhythm and discipline more than ever. A suspension-free lineup will not solve everything. But it is a start, and right now even that counts for something.
The bigger question is whether América can turn these small signs of order into something more convincing. Two results under Almada have offered only a partial answer. The next one against Santos Laguna will say far more.
