David Trezeguet says Mexican players lack the hunger to try their luck in Europe

There's one word David Trezeguet keeps repeating like it's a medical diagnosis: hunger. Or rather, the lack of it. The forward who won the World Cup with France in 1998 and now serves as an ambassador for River Plate sat down to talk about Mexican soccer, and he didn't hold back.

"The Mexican player finds a certain comfort in his own country," he says, almost like a sigh, when asked why so few Liga MX players end up succeeding in Europe. From there, he breaks down the problem with the calm of someone who has clearly thought it through many times before.

For Trezeguet, the comparison with South America is unavoidable. There, he says, the path is laid out from the youth academies: a kid reaches the first team and automatically starts dreaming of Europe. It's almost a natural reflex, not an exception. In Mexico, by contrast, he sees a different logic at work: a sporting and financial stability that ends up smothering that ambition to make the jump.

I strongly believe that a player, in the case of what happens at least in South America, it comes down to the player's development at the youth level. Once he's on the first team, the automatic ambition is to go play in European soccer.David Trezeguet

The numbers back up the theory: in the most recent summer transfer window, Mexico only managed to place two players in European soccer, this despite the national team having just turned in a strong showing at the 2026 World Cup. For Trezeguet, those figures are no coincidence, they're "a reality based on facts, they're statistics."

Rafa Marquez, the exception that proves the rule

But it's not all criticism. Trezeguet, who shared a locker room with him, has one name he points to as an example: Rafael Marquez. He speaks of him with admiration, almost as the blueprint for any young Mexican player looking to make the leap.

I think there have been players who set an example, and one is Rafael Marquez, who had that ambition to leave his family behind in order to go find the difficulty, show his qualities, and become one of the most important players not just in Mexican soccer, but worldwide.David Trezeguet

The Frenchman also touched on another structural sore spot: the absence of promotion and relegation in Liga MX. Without that risk of dropping down a division, he argues, you lose a kind of pressure that in South America acts as an engine for ambition and drive. That said, he made clear he'd rather not wade too deep into a topic that is "much broader" than that, preferring to stick to the purely soccer-related reading of it.

Argentina without Messi, and the high bar set by Zidane

The conversation also turned to the present state of the national team closest to his heart: Argentina, now without Lionel Messi after his retirement from international soccer. Trezeguet is confident the next generation will rise to the occasion, buoyed by the legacy Messi himself leaves behind.

For Argentina it will be a change, a change from an emblematic figure, a representative of world soccer who won every title there is to win with the Argentine national team. I think Messi has left behind an important standard to follow.David Trezeguet

As for France, he had no doubts when asked about Zinedine Zidane as the ideal man to lead the Bleus: a career built on titles, both as a player and as a coach, and a clear philosophy that second place is never good enough. Trezeguet, for his part, didn't let the recent World Cup go by without tipping his cap to Spain, whom he considered a deserving champion after coming through in the decisive moments.