Simply Fútbol: Márquez considers Tri retirement

Márquez considers Tri retirement

Posted by Juan Arango 3.12.2010

Barcelona defender Rafael Márquez hinted at possibly retiring from the Mexican national team on Friday.

"It will be my last World Cup and it is time to step aside and give youngsters a chance," said Márquez. He also attributed his decision to the extensive amount of traveling (sometimes through nine time zones) in order to report for international duty.

During his storied career, "El Kaiser de Michoacán" won the same amount of international titles (16) that the legendary Hugo Sánchez has. Márquez began his career in Atlas' vaunted youth system and quickly became noticed by national team coach Manolo Lapuente as well as AS Monaco coach Claude Puel. There he became one of the best defenders in Europe and in 2003 move to Barcelona for eight million euros.

Once he made his debut with the Catalan giants on he asserted himself in the backline and became a team leader playing in 235 matches and scoring 12 goals for the blaugrana.

Rafa made his debut with Mexico on February 7th, 1997 against Ecuador and eventually earned 86 caps for El Tri. He would take part in the 2002 and 2006 World Cups with Mexico and would score one goal against Argentina in Germany in the second round.

He should crack the top ten in caps for his national team side before the World Cup as he is only three behind Jared Borgetti in that category. If anyone had illusions of attaining the top spot, dream on. Claudio Suárez has that category locked doubling the former Monaco and Atlas man with 178.

Titles

AS Monaco