Rafael Marquez continues to defy the odds as a soccer player. At the age of 37 he is still the captain of Mexico and continues to play at a high level. He’s been a winner almost everywhere he’s been, picking up seventeen winning medals at the club level and four with Mexico. He’s the winningest player not only in Mexican soccer history, but for the CONCACAF region. Yet for a two-and-a-half-year spell Marquez went through his worst patch as a player when he spent three season with the New York Red Bulls. The only club he didn’t have a great amount of success with.
Marquez arrived to New York in August of 2010 after the World Cup and was one of New York's three DP players and was making one of the highest salaries upon arriving to the league. This also meant he reunited with one of his former Barcelona teammate in Thierry Henry.
Less than a month into his time with the Red Bulls, he scored his first goal for them (and only) when he launched a first time volley from 25 yards out to the upper corner. The problem was that was the peak of his time in New York as injuries and inconsistency from those injuries lead to him only making 44 appearances in his two and a half years with the club.
Love who you hate?
The injuries weren’t the biggest problem that Marquez had in his time in the MLS. To many fans, it seemed like he didn’t care and that he didn’t put in the effort in his time in New York. Plus, it was always going to be easy for MLS fans and journalist to dislike Marquez.
While in Mexico, he was seen as the captain and in Barcelona he become a world class defender. In the States, Marquez was none of that. He was seen as enemy number one for being the captain of the United States' biggest rival in Mexico and for having a hot temper. It’s hard not to imagine that the two red cards Marquez picked up against the U.S. didn’t play in some part in the way the USA/MLS fans and people saw Marquez. He didn’t do himself any favors when he picked up needless red cards including one when he threw the ball at Landon Donovan after a playoff match. Giving everyone who already disliked him just want they wanted, as the big bad Marquez doing something stupid and to America’s soccer golden boy Landon Donovan none the less. A perfect storm.
Another reason that Marquez might have struggled with his image during his time in MLS is that for the most part, Marquez isn’t much a personable person. He doesn’t have that boyish smile say Javier Hernandez has, or that image Giovani Dos Santos has. He also plays defense, which is less sexy than a striker and he always had a serious look on his face. He wasn’t the Mexican poster boy MLS were looking for to reach the Hispanic/Mexican market because Marquez isn’t the poster boy type. He’s never been a smiling ray of sunshine. Instead he’s at times almost cold and calculating.
He famously called out teammate Tim Ream for errors committed in a 3-1 defeat to Real Salt Lake. Following up by saying, “I think that this is a team game, and unfortunately, there isn’t an equal level between perhaps (Thierry Henry) and myself, and our teammates.”
The chicken or the egg?
What came first? The dislike to Marquez and the fact he was on a short leash with fans and the media, or did the backlash come because of Marquez’s frequent injuries and lack of play?
There’s probably a combination of things, as there probably was a group of fans and media who Marquez was never going to win over. He also didn’t think highly of the overall talent of the league and his team.
French backing
Still, through it all, Marquez had the backing of the most important person in the Red Bulls organization, Thierry Henry. When Marquez left the team and signed with Liga MX side Leon, Henry had nothing but praise for Marquez.
Henry was quoted with telling reporters, “We’re obviously going to miss him, his vision on the field and the way he calmed people down, you don't replace Rafa Marquez easily... He was an easy teammate for me," Henry said. "If you've looked back to anything I've said about him, I've always spoken well of him. He is one of the best defenders in the game over the past 15 years. So for me, I didn't see what the problem was."
He also defended Marquez’s three years and the constant injuries and what people thought was a lack of effort and interest of Marquez.
"People maybe thought that he wasn't trying to push it but he was really injured," he said. "Sometimes he tried to push it and he got even more injured. He got into a [constant] thing of trying to get back and not being ready. But he was a good professional and a great player."
We should have known all along
Really though, what we're both parties thinking? Easy and only answer was money. Marquez making it, and MLS hoping to bank on him with the Mexican fan base. The problem was that when you paint someone as U.S. soccer’s number one enemy for close to a decade, you can’t expect people to simply just forget about that. Marquez for his part seemed more than willing to help with that image.
In retrospect, was there any other way this story was going to end? Now four years removed from each other and a look back it’s shocking that the only place Marquez didn’t succeed was in New York. He quickly captained Leon to back-to-back Liga MX titles, and earned his way to another World Cup for Mexico. Which got him another stint in Europe at the age of 35 (35!) in Italy with Hellas Verona. So things worked out for him, and for MLS they were able to bring in Giovani Dos Santos last year and finally have the Mexican player they were hoping for to help expand their brand with the Mexican-American market.
Marquez, Mexican’s ultimate captain, Barcelona legend, and forever USA’s favorite player to hate. A perfect ending to a perfectly terrible idea and relationship.