# Football in Mexico

The most popular sport in Mexico is association football, known as fútbol in Mexico. The top professional leagues in Mexico are Liga MX for men and Liga MX Femenil for women.
In Mexico, football became a professional men's sport in 1943. Since then, Mexico's most successful men's club has been América, with sixteen titles in the top professional division.
The first women's professional football league in Mexico was established in 2016, the first season was in 2017–2018. It set new world records for attendances at women's professional football matches.
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.
Mexico's largest capacity stadiums are Estadio Azteca, Estadio Olímpico Universitario and Estadio Jalisco. As of 2006, it was estimated that there were in the nation over 324,000 registered players and approximately 8,155,000 unregistered players.

## Professional clubs

Men's football has been played in Mexico since the early 1900s, and professionally since 1943. The first club founded was Pachuca in 1892. The first women's professional football league Liga MX Femenil was announced in December 2016 and the inaugural season (2017–2018) started the following year. The development of women's football has occurred in waves since the 1950s.
Since 1996, the season is divided into two short tournaments (Apertura and Clausura) with a final phase in each tournament, called "liguilla". This system is common throughout Latin America. From 1996 to 2002, the two short tournaments of the regular phase was called "Verano" and "Invierno".
Liga MX formerly called 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.
Mexico's men's football has four divisions in the following order of competition level: Liga MX, Liga de Expansión MX, Liga Premier, and Liga TDP. The promotion and relegation are used by the FMF to advance (promote) a lesser level club into competition of like quality their aggregate percentage score warrants play in a higher competition level. They replace the club that is relegated to the next lower level based on their aggregate. Promotion and relegation take place after the Clausura tournament has ended.
Mexico's most successful men's clubs have been América with 16 Liga MX titles, Guadalajara with 12, Toluca with 10, Cruz Azul with 9, León and Tigres UANL with 8. On the women's side Tigres UANL are the most successful club, winning six championships since the 2017-2018 season the inaugural season of Liga MX Femenil. Both championship 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 and 51,211 at the Clausura final match.
The top three most popular football clubs on social media from North America, as of 25 March 2021, are all Mexican clubs. 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.
| # | Football club | Country | Followers |
| 1 | América | Mexico | 36 million |
| 2 | Guadalajara | Mexico | 13 million |
| 3 | Cruz Azul | Mexico | 6.6 million |

### Association football clubs by city/metro area

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
| Region | Metro area | Population | Liga MX (Top level) | Liga de Expansión MX (Second level) |
| Central South | Greater Mexico City | 21,804,515 | América Cruz Azul UNAM | Atlante |
| North East | Monterrey, Nuevo León | 5,341,177 | Monterrey UANL | |
| West | Guadalajara, Jalisco | 5,268,642 | Atlas Guadalajara | UdeG Tapatío |
| East | Puebla-Tlaxcala, Puebla/Tlaxcala | 3,199,530 | Puebla | |
| Central South | Toluca, State of Mexico | 2,353,924 | Toluca | |
| North West | Tijuana, Baja California | 2,157,853 | Tijuana | |
| North East | León, Guanajuato | 1,924,771 | León | |
| Central North | Querétaro, Querétaro | 1,594,212 | Querétaro | |
| North West | Juárez, Chihuahua | 1,512,450 | Juárez | |
| North West | La Laguna, Coahuila/Durango | 1,434,283 | Santos Laguna | |
| South East | Mérida, Yucatán | 1,316,088 | | Venados |
| Central North | San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí | 1,271,366 | Atlético San Luis | |
| Central North | Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes | 1,140,916 | Necaxa | |
| North West | Mexicali, Baja California | 1,049,792 | | |
| North East | Saltillo, Coahuila | 1,031,779 | | |
| Central South | Cuernavaca, Morelos | 1,028,589 | | |
| North West | Culiacán, Sinaloa | 1,003,530 | | Sinaloa |
| West | Morelia, Michoacán | 988,704 | | Morelia |
| North West | Chihuahua, Chihuahua (state) | 988,065 | | |
| East | Veracruz, Veracruz | 939,046 | | |
| South East | Cancún, Quintana Roo | 934,189 | | Cancún |
| North East | Tampico, Tamaulipas/Veracruz | 927,379 | | Jaiba Brava |
| South West | Acapulco, Guerrero | 852,622 | | |
| South West | Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas | 848,274 | | |
| North East | Reynosa, Tamaulipas | 837,251 | | |
| South East | Villahermosa, Tabasco | 833,907 | | |
| East | Xalapa, Veracruz | 789,157 | | |
| Central North | Celaya, Guanajuato | 767,104 | | Celaya |
| South West | Oaxaca, Oaxaca | 713,925 | | Oaxaca |
| North West | Durango, Durango | 688,697 | | |
| East | Pachuca, Hidalgo | 665,929 | Pachuca | |
| Central North | Irapuato, Guanajuato | 592,953 | | |
| East | Tlaxcala–Apizaco, Tlaxcala | 570,308 | | Tlaxcala |
| North West | Ensenada, Baja California | 561,375 | | |
| North East | Matamoros, Tamaulipas | 541,979 | | |
| East | Poza Rica, Veracruz | 521,530 | | |
| North West | Mazatlán, Sinaloa | 501,441 | Mazatlán | |
| Central North | Zacatecas-Guadalupe, Zacatecas | 405,285 | | Zacatecas |
| North East | Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas | 349,688 | | UAT |
| North West | La Paz, Baja California Sur | 292,241 | | La Paz |
| West | Tepatitlán, Morelos | 150,190 | | Tepatitlán |

## National teams

The Mexico national football team has 17 participations in the FIFA World Cup, reaching the quarter-finals twice (both times as hosts) and finishing in the round of 16 at seven consecutive tournaments. They also finished as runners-up at the Copa América twice. Mexico won the 1999 FIFA Confederations Cup as hosts, beating Brazil 4–3 in the final to win its first world-class senior tournament organized by FIFA. The olympic team were gold medalists at the 2012 Olympic Football Tournament in London, once again beating Brazil 2-1 in the final. The under-17 team were world champions twice, winning in Peru 2005 and at home in Mexico 2011.
Players from Mexico have joined teams in Europe, including Jared Borgetti, Rafael Márquez, Gerardo Torrado, Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Nery Castillo, Carlos Salcido, Ricardo Osorio, Pável Pardo, Andrés Guardado, Guillermo Franco, Carlos Vela, Giovani dos Santos, Omar Bravo, Aaron Galindo, Héctor Moreno, Francisco Javier Rodríguez, Francisco Fonseca, Javier Hernández (commonly referred to as "Chicharito"), Pablo Barrera, Efraín Juárez, Guillermo Ochoa, Jesús Corona, Héctor Herrera, Miguel Layún, Raúl Jiménez, Marco Fabián, Diego Reyes, Hirving Lozano, Edson Álvarez, Alexis Vega and Diego Lainez the most recents.
Mexico's men's national team has achieved other significant feats such as the most CONCACAF Championship/CONCACAF Gold Cup titles with 12. Mexico has hosted two times the FIFA World Cup (1970 and 1986). Estadio Azteca is the biggest stadium in the world to have hosted two World Cup finals and is one of the largest stadiums in the world. Mexico will co-host the 2026 FIFA World Cup along with Canada and the United States. Several matches will take place in Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara.
The Mexico women's national football team was officially formed in 1991 to compete in the 1991 CONCACAF Women's Championship and its first participation in the World Cup was in USA 1999. However, in 1970 an unofficial team Mexico finished third in an unofficial Women's World Cup held in Italy. In 1971, the team hosted an unofficial women's World Cup and reached the final, only to lose to Denmark 3–0. An estimated 110,000 people attended the final at Estadio Azteca.

## History

Football was introduced to Mexico by emigrant miners from Cornwall, England at the end of the 19th century. 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. By 1902 a five-team league emerged with a strong English influence. Many of the early football teams were affiliated with corporations.
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, known as Federación Mexicana de Football Asociación. 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.

## Mexican football stadiums

Stadiums with a capacity of 40,000 or higher are included.
| # | Stadium | Capacity | City | State | Team(s) | Surface | Year Opened | Owner | League division |
| 1 | Azteca | 81,070 | Tlalpan | Mexico City | América, Cruz Azul, Mexico national team | Grass | 1966 | Grupo Televisa | Liga MX |
| 2 | Olímpico Universitario | 69,000 | Coyoacán | Mexico City | UNAM | Grass | 1952 | UNAM | Liga MX |
| 3 | Jalisco | 55,020 | Guadalajara | Jalisco | Atlas, UdeG | Grass | 1960 | Clubes Unidos de Jalisco | Liga MX, Liga de Expansión MX |
| 4 | BBVA | 51,348 | Guadalupe | Nuevo León | Monterrey | Grass | 2015 | FEMSA | Liga MX |
| 5 | Cuauhtémoc | 47,417 | Puebla City | Puebla | Puebla | Grass | 1968 | State of Puebla | Liga MX |
| 6 | Akron | 46,232 | Zapopan | Jalisco | Guadalajara | Grass | 2010 | Grupo Omnilife | Liga MX |
| 7 | Universitario | 41,886 | San Nicolás de los Garza | Nuevo León | UANL | Grass | 1967 | UANL | Liga MX |