El TRI Calls up Colombian Born Julian Quiñones for Its Match Against Honduras

The Mexican National team has called up Julian Quiñones, a Colombian-born winger, for its coming Concacaf Nations League matches against Honduras.

Although born in Colombia, Quiñones has played in the Mexican Liga MX his entire career, first appearing for Tigres in 2016 and most recently transferring to Club América in July for a reported fee of $9 million. This season, Quiñones has been an essential player for América and has scored six goals and assisted five times in 12 matches.

Coming up through the ranks, Quiñones played for the Colombia Under-20 team but was never called up for the senior national team. This prompted the 26-year-old to seek Mexican citizenship to be eligible to play for the country's National team.

The decision to include Quiñones in the lineup for the upcoming fixtures came from national team manager Jaime Lozano and was backed by the Mexican Soccer Federation.

"Any player with Mexican nationality, with the level of soccer and the desire to represent Mexico, may be considered to participate in the National Teams of our country," said the Mexican Soccer Federation in a statement.

Quiñones is not the first foreign-born player to play for El Tri. Antonio López Herranz was the first naturalized player to play for Mexico. Herranz was born in Madrid and played for Real Madrid before joining Club América. He played with the Mexican National team in 1938 and eventually became the team's manager in the 1954 World Cup.

More recently, the Mexican National team has called up Rogelio Funes Mori (Argentina), Marcelo Flores (Canada), and Santiago Giménez (Argentina) to represent them on the international stage.

Mexico's recruitment of foreign-born players could be a strategic move, according to the soccer news site BolaVip. Besides having a handful of tournament wins against weaker opposition in the Concacaf federation, the Mexican National team has not impressed in international soccer.

On the World Cup stage, Mexico has not made it past the round of 16 since 1986, and in the 2022 Qatar World Cup the team didn't go through the group stage.