Rafa Márquez laments lack of Liga MX interest in Europe

With two spells at Atlas FC and more than 145 caps and appearances at five World Cup tournaments, Rafael Márquez is one of Mexican football’s most celebrated and respected names.

The current FC Barcelona ‘B’ head coach was interviewed by John Sutcliffe with the full interview set to air via ESPN on 14 June.

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One of the topics that was raised during the conversation was the lack of popularity of the domestic Liga MX in Europe, an issue close to Marquez’s heart.

“Liga MX is definitely not a league that people are interested in Europe where there appears to be more of an obvious interest in the Argentine or Brazilian leagues”, commented the Mexican international who emerged from the Atlas FC youth academy before moving to Europe for spells with Monaco and Barcelona before heading Stateside and playing with NY Red Bulls in MLS.

Márquez added: “as long as the way Mexican domestic soccer is organized does not change, it will be difficult for them to turn things around. There is no interest in Mexican soccer and that’s before I even delve into the mechanics of how the system works. Unfortunately, this is our reality, there is little interest from people in Europe and I think that could be connected to the fact that there are so few Mexican players here in Europe”, added the ‘Kaiser’.

The ESPN interview is set to offer much more as Marquez talks about his time as a national player under Javier Aguirre as well as the hurt felt by being eliminated by the United States in the 2002 World Cup Round of 16 game in Korea that gave way to the famous ‘dos a cero’ catchphrase that would be used for future decades to taunt Mexican fans.