Gilberto Mora will reportedly become the youngest player in Mexico national team history to wear El Tri’s iconic No. 10 shirt.
According to TUDN, the 17-year-old wonderkid will swap the No. 19 shirt he donned during the 2026 World Cup for the legendary No. 10. The shirt previously belonged to the now injured Alexis Vega, who wore the number for El Tri in the two most recent World Cups.
As Mexico embarks on a new era under new manager Rafael Márquez, Mora will debut his new shirt number during the fall window. The expectation, though, is that the teenager keeps the number for good as the 2030 World Cup cycle begins.
The teenager started donning the No. 10 at the club level with Liga MX side Tijuana this summer. Now, the youngest player in El Tri’s World Cup history and the youngest player in soccer history to lift a senior international trophy will take another step as the future of Mexican soccer.
Wearing El Tri’s No. 10 is an honor reserved for some of the best players in Mexico national team history.
Iconic Players Who Wore No. 10 for Mexico
Mexico boast a rich history of players who have donned the iconic No. 10. Talented playmakers, prolific goalscorers and pioneers of soccer in the nation have made it the most prestigious jersey number—as is the case across the world—a player can wear with the national team.
Tomás Balcázar, now more commonly known for being Javier “Chicharito” Hernández’s grandfather, was the first Mexican player to wear the number in the 1954 World Cup and, like his grandson would 56 years later, he bagged a goal against France.
One of the greatest players in Liga MX and one of the best playmakers in Mexico’s history, Tomás Boy bore the pressure of the No. 10 shirt during the 1986 World Cup—Mexico’s best until 2026. During the 1990s, it belonged to striker Luis García, who still holds the joint record for most goals by a Mexico international during their first season in Europe, scoring 20 times for Atlético Madrid in 1992–93.
But the greatest Mexico player ever to wear the No. 10 shirt is the legendary Cuauhtémoc Blanco. The Club América hero was a classic attacking midfielder and is considered by many the most talented player in El Tri’s history. He donned the shirt number in three separate World Cups, scoring a goal in all three.
Mora will join this special club of El Tri legends, hoping to emulate or even surpass their level of success. Still, not all players are equipped to handle the pressure of such an iconic number, and Mora will have to work hard to ensure recent history doesn’t repeat itself.
Mora Must Withstand Pressure Others Haven’t Survived
It was former U–17 World Cup champion and Barcelona academy graduate Giovani Dos Santos who inherited Mexico’s No. 10 shirt in 2010. Like Mora, Dos Santos was seen as the future of Mexican soccer, a player talented enough to take El Tri to even greater heights.
But Dos Santos never met the lofty expectations placed on him from early age. His became a journeyman at the club level and merely flashed moments of magic during his career wearing No. 10 with El Tri, which included two World Cups. There’s an overwhelming sense that Dos Santos never truly reached his full potential, impacted by the pressure of expectations.
Vega has been El Tri’s No. 10 in recent major tournaments, but he’s never been able to translate the form that saw him lead Toluca to consecutive Liga MX titles with the national team. He too often looked incapable of delivering under the bright lights of big international stages.
It will be up to Mora to handle the pressure and baggage that comes with his new shirt number, because there’s incredibly high hopes for the future placed on his shoulders. Mexico’s No. 10 has the responsibility to deliver the goods on the pitch, and being a teenager won’t be a valid excuse for poor results.
Still, there’s nothing that suggests Mora is ill-prepared. On the contrary, he continues to improve by the game and he already deserves the honor of being Mexico’s new No. 10—just ask his former manager, Javier Aguirre.
“Gil is a ‘crack’” Aguirre said, praising Mora. “He’s a player, a kid, that surely will be out of Mexico briefly because he deserves to go to Europe to a big club. He’ll do it surely. Who better than him to wear the No. 10? There’s no other.”
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