Rafa Marquez is a thoroughly modern figure. In the twenty-first century, no one has wielded more influence on the fortunes and reputations of Mexican soccer. The modern game is a global game, so it follows that Rafa made much of his mark, for himself and his countrymen, abroad. In 1999, he left the security of domestic futbol for the French club AS Monaco. Following the World Cup trauma of 2002, he moved to F.C. Barcelona, where the polished center back appeared 243 times for one of history’s finest club sides. To the extent that Mexican players have taken their talents abroad, Hugo Sanchez and Marquez are the models. Manchester United star Javier “Chicharito” Hernández, in particular has cited Marquez as his inspiration in this regard. Not every foreign adventure went to plan. After an unhappy two-year stint in MLS, with New York Red Bulls—the worst decision of his career, he later told ESPN Deportes—Rafa returned home to finish his playing days where they started, with Atlas of Guadalajara.

While his resume is among the most cosmopolitan ever built by a Mexican footballer, the Michoacán native has very mixed feelings about the idea of leaving or forsaking Mexico in search of something better. As Marquez told Grant Wahl for the Good Rivals doc:

My father was the eldest child growing up and he suffered the abandonment of my grandfather migrating to the United States. He had to become the man of his house, to provide for his brother and bring home the daily bread. I’ll always remember, every night, my father telling us about what he endured when our grandfather abandoned us. He always told us that we had to value what we have, and that stuck with me. That’s the issue the United States carries for me. Without blaming it or fearing it, the United States caused pain in my family because of that abandonment.

The first time I ever heard of or knew about the United States, it was because I had family members living there. We only saw them on important dates like Christmas. And I wondered why they lived there. Then I began to understand it better. I saw the United States as a place where people went in search of something better, and maybe they did indeed progress. I saw that when they returned. You could tell the difference in the clothes and shoes they wore. The gifts they would bring back. But their attitudes had changed, too. They were superior, simply because they were living in the United States, and I didn’t like that this had happened with members of my own family.

Ultimately, we’ve always seen the U.S. as the place where dreams of a better life come true. But personally I know that these dreams can also be achieved here in Mexico, and I have achieved them.

Marquez cuts a complex and candid figure. Looking back on his 2002 performance in South Korea—his grisly red car, the humiliating World Cup ouster, those 90 minutes of footballing tragedy on a scale—he refuses to pull punches: “We did not want to play the U.S. because they are an uncomfortable rival. We would rather lose to anyone than the United States. Playing against the U.S. is more than a match. It’s rivalry. It’s passion.”

Handsome to the point of elegance, Rafa also speaks with a calm and clarity that exudes a sort of nobility. The human element with this guy is always right there on the surface. It’s hard not to admire him.

At the same time, do take a moment to appreciate how many of the story elements related above—the man’s family background, his professional decision-making—were predicated on Soccernomic and straight-up money factors.

In the modern futbol world, this should not surprise us. Economic components combine to influence most everything in today’s beautiful game, including El Clásico. The emotion and fire of this storied competition remain. They will always remain. But if the dollars and everyone’s pursuit of them don’t sit at the center of US-Mexico conversations, they are never far away.

One wonders what Rafa Marquez thinks about all this cross-border, market- driven cooperation between Liga MX and MLS, between federations and broadcasters—in light of his fraught history with the United States and his future role as Javier Aguirre’s heir apparent. World Cup 2026 is another cooperative and highly commercial enterprise. Once the tournament is finished, it’s reasonable to expect that professional club soccer will go forward as an ever-more continental undertaking because the dollars demand it.

Post World Cup, on behalf of the national team he is poised to inherit, Rafa will be spending a lot of time and energy in the United States. He will manage the men in green during friendly internationals, of course. The manager and his Federación colleagues will also scour the U.S., meeting and convincing young Mexican Americans to compete for El Tricolor.

“Our scouting division was set up three years ago [2018]. We developed a strategy in which there are scouts in many different parts of the U.S.,” explains Jorge Tello Hernandez, speaking to the Spanish sports daily La Marca. From 2019 to 2023, Tello led the FMF scouting department. Today, he’s with Club Necaxa.

“Nowadays the Mexican talent that’s developing in the U.S. has been doing so for 15–20 years. So much so that U.S. youth leagues are as strong as any others worldwide. Players are often not Mexican and neither are their parents. Maybe they have roots and they have the legal right to become Mexican citizens. But they have no real links to Mexico and they don’t visit, so it’s not that simple. Still, we want to showcase our soccer project, and if it suits them on a sporting level, they can choose to play for Mexico.”

I wish Rafa Marquez all the best in his prospective role with the national team because accommodating the American economic and cultural monolith is not something for which he’s shown much patience or enthusiasm through the years. And managing La Selección, even in the best and simplest of times, is plenty hard enough.