Atlante Liga MX Return: 2026 & New Role

The team of workers from Mexico City, the one that was born in the current Condesa neighborhood, the one that dresses in blue and collects moving parts, will return. It’s the Atlantean. This is a centenary team (107 years old) that spent the last 11 years in a Second Division that stopped offering the possibility of promotion to First Division since 2020. Starting in 2026, the club will take the place of Mazatlán, owned by businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego, who is preparing his exit from Mexican soccer.

Mikel Arriola, commissioner of the Mexican Football Federation, confirmed this Tuesday the sale agreement of Mazatlán with the owner of Atlante, Emilio Escalante. “This agreement is subject to compliance with certain closing conditions, authorization and traditional procedures for this type of operations. It is expected that the operation will be fully concluded before the summer of 2026,” said Arriola. The club’s sale process began at the request of Salinas Pliego before the Assembly of Owners of the other 17 First Division clubs. Without the majority approval of its members they could not sell.

To understand the puzzle of Mexican soccer, we must go back to 2018. In that year, the owners of the First Division clubs established a series of rules for the promotion of Second Division teams, including a requirement that the teams’ finances be transparent and debt-free, and also that the stadiums of each of them have a minimum of 20,000 seats. That felt bad among the Second Division businessmen. There were times when the category champion could not be promoted because he did not meet those requirements, as happened to Tapachula. The last team that was promoted was Atlético de San Luis Potosí, the satellite team of Atlético de Madrid, in 2019. A Second club, Bravos de Juárez, bought its place in the First Division before the departure of the Lobos BUAP.

It was in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, when the same leaders decided to freeze promotion and relegation to protect the investments of Liga MX and thus harmed the clubs that were suffering from climbing the sport. There was anger, fury and protests in the clubs, including those of Atlante. The Second Division continued to exist without the merit of promotion, the only thing they won was a soulless trophy. Atlante won it three times.

Grupo Salinas, in that same 2020, changed the identity of its home team, Monarcas Morelia, to move it from Michoacán to Mazatlán, in Sinaloa, because it wanted to maximize its investment in a place where there had never been First Division football. It was a bet in the middle of an economic crisis. The players moved away and the team underwent a metamorphosis. In the five years of its history, the club has never been a champion, much less qualified for the final phase of the tournament. Monarcas, on the other hand, had won a League championship in 2000 and a Cup championship (2013).

Atlante has been a historic team with three Liga MX championships (1946-47, 1992-93 and 2007), two Concacaf Champions Leagues (1983 and 2008-2009) and played in the Club World Cup in 2009 against Messi’s Barcelona. Atlante played in the legendary Azteca Stadium, then moved to Cancún in an aggressive bid for its history. He returned, in the Second Division, to the capital to the Ciudad de los Deportes Stadium and, in the last year, he moved to Morelos. Everywhere, sometimes with more or less euphoria, he has been accompanied by a whole legion of long-standing fans who still chant from Tito Tepito, the team’s main cheerleader.