Recent weeks have seen Mario Garcia become the object of desire for Pumas. The feline directive, led by Leopoldo Silva and Miguel Mejía Barón, wished for the multi-champion coach of Atlante to be part of Rafael Puente del Rio's coaching staff for this Clausura 2023, an invitation that the strategist rejected as he feels in debt to the Atlante's Potros de Hierro leadership who practically took him out of retirement, since no Liga MX or Liga de Expansión club offered him an opportunity.

"I appreciate the invitation from Rafa, but I have thought about it for these three weeks and I prefer to get an opportunity on my own, there is no choice but to keep chipping away at it, because I am not willing to sell my soul to the devil to coach in the First Division, beyond the fact that promoters continue to speak against me and be so shameless as to want to shut doors on me," he stated to AS México.

Similarly, García expressed himself extremely grateful to Atlante's owner, Emilo Escalante, for trusting in his work.

"I am for the First Division. There are people who terribly disqualify me, but today Emilio Escalante and (Jorge) Santillana took me out of that disqualification. I have been alone for years, I went to assist Maradona, won championships in second division, managed in the first division, and they had me in the trash because I don't have a promoter, they don't like me, and Escalante got me off my couch, lifted me up, they said, don't bring him, we have 10 better than him, he's crazy, he's unhinged, and they got to know me day by day for two and a half years, semifinals, finals, championships, but most importantly, a great group of players that was formed," explained the coach who debuted world champion Johan Vázquez in Cimarrones de Sinaloa and won the titles of Apertura 2007 (Atlante, assistant coach of Profe Cruz), Clausura 2016 (Tampico Madero), Apertura 2021 (Atlante), Champion of champions 2021-2022 (Atlante), and Apertura 2022 (Atlante).

FCM