The records of Rafa Márquez with the Mexico shirt, which no footballer on the current squad will be able to match

Rafael Márquez is one of the best Mexican footballers to have existed and to also play in Europe. Coupled with a successful club career, he has a successful national team career with many records. He made his El Tri debut in 1997 and retired in 2018 after the FIFA World Cup having played and captained Mexico at five FIFA World Cups.

Rafael Márquez began his journey with the México national team in 1997 while playing for Atlas. He made his debut in a friendly match against Ecuador. His call up was reported to be an error from El Tri manager Bora Milutinovic who wanted to call Cesar Marquez who was Rafael Márquez's teammate at Atlas then. He was denied the opportunity of having a teenage appearance at a World Cup after he was not selected for the France 1998 squad.

The former Barcelona is one of the Mexican footballers with the most senior team appearances for El Tri, in his 19years with the national team he played 147 matches and scored 17 goals. He has appeared at five FIFA World Cups, a record he shares with fellow Mexican Antonio Carbajal, Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and Germany legend Lothar Matthaus. He is the first and only player to captain a country to five World Cups, a record that will stay around for a very long time. He is also Mexico's highest appearance holder at the World Cup with 19 games.

Rafa Márquez retired from club football in May 2018 but expressed his desire to represent Mexico at the 2018 World Cup. In 2017 he was blacklisted by the United States Department of Treasury over alleged links to drug trafficking organisations. This put him at a big risk of missing out on an historic tournament for him.

There were concerns that sponsors and US based or related companies could get into trouble if he uses their merchandise and other materials, this put a lot of doubt on his selection but he was eventually selected and played. He trained in different kits from his colleagues and avoided sponsor's logos, he was also never paid for the tournament.

He attended a lot of international tournaments for Mexico, ranging from FIFA World Cups, FIFA Confederations Cup.and CONCACAF tournaments and he won four trophies for El Tri.

FIFA Confederations Cup: 1999

CONCACAF Gold Cup: 2003, 2011

CONCACAF Cup: 2015