Four Mexican players win their league in Europe in 9 days
It is not uncommon to find success stories amongst Mexican players who venture in the old continent. The history books are littered with Mexican champions in various European competitions from England all the way to Ukraine.
This past week however, was a bit of an extra winning spell for the mextranjeros, as four players lifted their league titles in the span of just over a week. It all started with Chucky Lozano winning the scudetto on may 5th and ended in an incredible note with Santiago Gimenez, Orbelin Pineda and Julian Araujo winning the Dutch, Greek and Spanish leagues respectively in one single day.
There have been four Mexican players in the Italian Serie A (Miguel Layun, Chucky Lozano, Rafa Marquez, Johan Vazquez), but it was until this past Friday May 5th that a Mexican player could lift the Scudetto. An impressive feat that Chucky’s Napoli hadn’t achieved since the Maradona days, back in 1990.
The Greek Super League has been more benign towards Mexicans, as two players have lifted a league title there (Nery Castillo, Alan Pulido). This is the first time a Mexican lifts a league trophy with Athenian team AEK, as both Castillo and Pulido did it with Olympiacos.
Orbelin and AEK had a strong regular season, barely finishing second, just two points behind leader Panathinaikos. It was in the post-season that AEK ultimately got the lead.
In the round robin amongst the top 6 teams to decide the champion, AEK didn’t lose a single time and tied both of their matches against Panathinaikos. On the other hand, The Shamrocks lost against Olympiacos and they also had more ties than victories compared to AEK.
This constitutes the 13th league for the Athenian club, which recently announced a partnership with Mexican second-tier club Atletico Morelia.
There have been numerous Mexican champions in the Dutch Eredivisie, since the early days of Carlos Salcido with PSV all the way to just this past 2021/2022 season, with ‘Machin’ Alvarez winning with Ajax.
It is the first time a Mexican wins with the Rotterdam team Feyenoord however, and it’s the 16th league title for Feyenoord, who are trailing Ajax and PSV with 36 and 24 league titles each.
It was an impressive first year for “Chaquito” as he eased into Europe as if he had been playing there for years. He has scored 23 goals in all competitions, including 15 goals in the league, which placed him just two goals behind current leader Anastasios Douvikas from Utrecht, but there are still two more games to play.
Despite not being officially registered with the first Barcelona team, Julian Araujo joins a selected group of Mexican players who have celebrated a league title in Spain.
Julián Araujo is not officially champion but celebrated like one
Hugo Sanchez won five leagues in a row between 1985 and 1990. Rafa Marquez won four titles in 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2010. Jonathan dos Santos, also without much activity, collected plenty of silverware during the Guardiola era at Barcelona, winning three times in 2010, 2011 and 2013. Lastly Hector Herrera lifted the trophy with Atlético de Madrid just two seasons ago in 2021.
The race for a starting position in Xavi’s Barcelona will be as fierce as ever, but the Mexican has high hopes of getting more play time in the future.
One of the best weeks for Mexican players in Europe since records started. There have now been Mexican champions in all of the top 4 leagues in Europe with plenty more in smaller leagues. We hope that the coming seasons are as fruitful as the 2022/2023 was.
