Wherever you go on Mexico on a weekend, you’ll some people sporting the jerseys of their favorite soccer teams and a TV showing live matches is a normal sight in restaurants and bars. So, with the 2018 World Cup approaching I thought of trying to explain Mexico’s love with soccer – which, by the way, is only called fútbol in Mexico – but that would be quite a feat to achieve, yet, if you learn more about the local teams, you’ll begin to see how deeply rooter is the passion for soccer in Mexicans of all ages.
Mexico hasn’t been very successful at national team level, since they only managed to reach the World Cup quarter finals on two occasions as well as winning the Confederations Cup in 1999, all of these in tournaments held in Mexico. However, soccer teams in Mexico gradually became more powerful and today they are considered a force to be reckoned with in American soil as well as on an international club level.
I was planning to make a top 5 of the Mexico soccer teams, but I decided against ranking them, because that might stir some trouble with the fans, such as a fan asking why is team over team in the ranking, since won more championships and so forth. Here are what I believe to be the most important soccer teams in Mexico, ranked by alphabet only.
Soccer teams in Mexico gradually became more powerful and today they are considered a force to be reckoned
Club America
Club America was founded in 1916, being one of the oldest professional clubs in Mexico, although the first league title was not to be won until 1956-1966. They’re currently the owners of 12 national championships, being only second to Chivas de Guadalajara, who have won 12 titles in their history. The two are the most successful soccer teams in Mexico from a silverware point of view and Chivas is the historical nemesis of America, so a match between the two is a derby that the entire country awaits.
Club America gets credit for discovering or highlighting players such as Cuauhtemoc Blanco, Enrique Borja, Carlos Hermosillo, Pavel Pardo, Salvador Cabañas, Claudio Lopez, Ivan Zamorano or Memo Ochoa.
Chivas de Guadalajara
The club’s official name is Club Deportivo Guadalajara, but every soccer fan in Mexico knows them as Chivas (the goats). Their tally of 12 league titles makes Chivas tie with America as the most successful of all soccer teams in Mexico. They’re also very loved for their Mexican-only policy, in that they never use foreigners and focus only on local Mexican players.
Their popularity reaches far beyond the borders of Mexico and into the United States, where a team called Chivas USA was formed. The Mexican Chivas have credit for launching players such as Salvador Reyes, Omar Bravo, Claudio Suarez, Juan Palencia, Gonzalo Pineda, Luis Garcia or Carlos Hermosillo, not to forget Javier Hernández, el Chicharito.
Cruz Azul
Founded in Hidalgo in 1927 at Ciudad Cooperativa Cruz Azul in Hidalgo, they moved to Mexico City in 1971. Cruz Azul holds the fourth place in the history of Mexican football with 8 championships and has the third largest fan base in the country.
Cruz Azul is known, tongue-in-cheek, as the subcampeonísimo de México, which would mean something like the greatest runner-up due to them losing at 11 final rounds in the Mexican league, yet during the 1970s, Cruz Azul managed to win 5 championships cementing their place as the best team of the decade.
Amongst famous players that have sported the Cruz Azul badge are Miguel Marín, Javier el Kalimán Guzmán, Francisco Palencia, Oscar Pérez, Carlos Hermosillo, Cesar Delgado and Jesús Corona.
Pumas UNAM
Because of the team’s close relation to UNAM, the largest university in Mexico, the club became known as Pumas de la UNAM, although their official name is Club Universidad Nacional A.C. Although the Pumas don’t have the same history as some of the other top soccer clubs in Mexico, having been founded in 1954, they definitely made their years of existence count, winning 7 league champs, 3 CONCACAF Cups, 1 Interamerican Cup as well as several smaller silverware.
Amongst the players that wore the Pumas logo on their shirt in the club’s fifty-year existence, the most important are: Enrique Borja, Hugo Sanchez, Jorge Campos, Alberto Aspe, Luis Garcia, Esteban Solari, Emerson, Ailton da Silva or Dario Veron.
Tigres
The official name for Tigres is Club de Futbol Tigres de la Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León and it was founded in 1960. Tigres has been ranked at place 16 among clubs from all over the world and in the Mexican league has won the cup on 6 different occasions, for of them in the past decade.
Tigres is not only famous for having what could possibly be the most passionate fans in fútbol, but also for their current striker, Frenchman André Pierre Gignac, and past legends such as Tomás Boy, Walter Gaitán, Enner Valencia and Jürgen Damm, the world’s second fastest soccer player.
Article Written by:
Niv Orlian
Soccer Blogger
