The most popular sport in Mexico is association football, known as fútbol in Spanish language,[1][2] 73% of the Mexican population consider themselves football fans.[3] The top professional football leagues in the country are Liga MX for men and Liga MX Femenil for women.
In 1943, football became a professional men's sport in Mexico. Since then, the most successful men's club is América.[4] In 2016, the first women's professional football league was established in the country, starting with the 2017–18 season. It set new world records for attendances at women's professional football matches.[5][6] Since then, the most successful women's club is Tigres UANL.
Antonio Carbajal was the first player to appear in five World Cups, and Hugo Sánchez was named best CONCACAF player of the 20th century by IFFHS.
Men's football has been played in Mexico since the early 1900s, and professionally since 1943. The first club founded was Pachuca in 1892. Liga MX Femenil was the first women's professional football league, starting in the Apertura 2017.[8][9] The development of women's football has occurred in waves since the 1950s.[10]
Since 1996, the season is divided into two short tournaments (Apertura and Clausura) with a final knockout phase in each tournament, known as liguilla. This system is common throughout Latin America.[11] From 1996 to 2002, the two short tournaments of the regular phase was named "Verano" and "Invierno".
Liga MX formerly named Liga Mayor and Primera División de México changed the names of the tournaments in 2002, and opted for the names Apertura and Clausura. The Apertura tournament is played from July to December, while the Clausura tournament is played from January to May.
Mexican football system has four divisions in the following order of competition level: Liga MX, Liga de Expansión MX, Liga Premier, and Liga TDP. Since 2020, the promotion and relegation has been suspended until 2026–27.
The most successful clubs in Liga MX are América with 16 titles, Guadalajara and Toluca with 12 titles each, Cruz Azul with 9 titles, León and Tigres UANL with 8 titles each.[4] The most successful clubs in Liga MX Femenil are Tigres UANL with 7 titles, Monterrey with 4 titles, América and Guadalajara with 2 titles each. Both final matches in the first season set new world records for attendance at a women's football league match with 32,466 fans in attendance at the Apertura final[12] and 51,211 at the Clausura final match.[13]
The top three most popular football clubs on social media from North America, as of 25 March 2021, are all Mexican clubs.[14] Note that this was before the arrival of Lionel Messi at Inter Miami, which resulted in 12.5 million Instagram followers for Inter Miami in 2023.[15]
Liga MX is the most important and top level division in Mexico. Liga de Expansión MX (formerly Ascenso MX) is the second level division in Mexican football. The following table shows the teams of these leagues and the cities/metro areas they're based in.
Key to colors and symbols
Metro areas with 3 teams in league
Metro areas with 2 teams in league
Metro areas larger than 500,000 population without a team in these leagues
The Mexico national football team has qualified for the FIFA World Cup seventeen times and has qualified consecutively since 1994, reaching the quarter-finals twice (1970 and 1986) both as hosts, and reaching the round of 16 at seven consecutive editions. Mexico won the 1999 FIFA Confederations Cup as hosts, defeating Brazil 4–3, becoming the only non-European or South American team to have won an official global competition organized by FIFA for senior national teams.
The under-23 has been Olympic medalists twice, winning the gold medal at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, defeating Brazil 2–1, and winning the bronze medal at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, defeating the hosts Japan 3–1.
The under-20 team finished as world runners-up in 1977, and also finished in third place in 2011. The under-17 team has been world champions twice (2005 and 2011), and also finished as runners-up twice (2013 and 2019).
The Mexico women's national football team was officially formed in 1991 to compete in the 1991 CONCACAF Women's Championship, its first appearance in the World Cup was in 1999. The team finished in third place in the 1970 unofficial World Cup held in Italy,[10][19] and also finished as runners-up in the 1971 unofficial World Cup as hosts, with an estimated 110,000 people attended the final at Estadio Azteca.[20]
History
Football was introduced to Mexico by emigrant miners from Cornwall, England at the end of the 19th century.[21] In the early 1900s, football was used as a method to "indoctrinate modern labor practices" such as teamwork and competition within a set of rules upon the Mexican workers.[21] In 1902, a five-clubs league emerged with a strong English influence.[22][23] Many of the early football clubs were affiliated with corporations.[24]
The first amateur league created in Mexico was the Liga Mexicana de Football Amateur Association in 1902, organized by the Asociación de Aficionados de México en la Liga de Football (English: The Mexico Amateur Association in the Football League).
The first football federation in Mexico was founded in 1922, named Federación Mexicana de Football Asociación, and the following year changed its name to Federación Central de Fútbol. The current Federación Mexicana de Fútbol (FMF) was established in 1927 and later affiliated with FIFA in 1929.
Stadiums
Stadiums with a capacity of 40,000 or higher are included.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
