For the eighth time in their history, El Tri started a World Cup — and for the first time in 96 years, they finished the night on top.
Mexico’s World Cup opener has spent nearly a century as a cautionary tale. On Thursday it became a celebration. Co-hosts Mexico beat South Africa 2-0 at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City to launch the 48-team, 104-game tournament they are staging alongside the United States and Canada, the largest World Cup ever held — and, at the eighth time of asking, they finally won a World Cup curtain-raiser.
The night opened with a ceremony headlined by Shakira, Maná and Andrea Bocelli, before a Group A fixture Mexico had been waiting since 1930 to win. The weight of that statistic is hard to overstate. Mexico hold the record for the most World Cup opening matches played, having appeared in a World Cup opening match in 1930, 1950, 1954, 1958, 1962, 1970 and 2010 — some of them shared, simultaneous curtain-raisers in the tournament’s early years — and losing or drawing every one. The tally before kick-off was five defeats and two draws. Three of those losses came against Brazil, in an era when FIFA still picked opening-match sides at random; the slide was interrupted only by a goalless draw with the Soviet Union at the Azteca in 1970. Mexico even played in the very first match in World Cup history, beaten 4-1 by France in Montevideo. Ninety-six years on, the hoodoo is gone.
There was an extra echo to the occasion. The last time Mexico played a World Cup opener, it was against the hosts in South Africa in 2010 — a game that finished 1-1. This time the opponent was the same and the venue was home, and El Tri made sure the result was not.
They did not have to wait long. Julián Quiñones, the Colombian-born forward who only made his Mexico debut in 2023, struck inside the opening exchanges to settle a crowd of more than 80,000. The second came midway through the second half, when veteran striker Raúl Jiménez headed in from close range for his first goal at a World Cup — the reward for a forward whose three previous tournaments had passed without one. It moved him level with Jared Borgetti as the second-highest scorer in Mexico’s history, behind Javier “Chicharito” Hernández.
If the football was largely controlled, the discipline was not. The match was marred by three red cards — the most ever shown in a World Cup opening match. South Africa were reduced to nine after Sphephelo Sithole was dismissed for hauling back a Mexican attacker clean through on goal and Themba Zwane was also sent off, while Mexico’s César Montes saw red late for clipping a South African breakaway just outside the box. All three will miss their next group game. It was only the second time one side has had two players sent off in a tournament opener, after Cameroon against Argentina in 1990 — a match Cameroon somehow still won.
The day made history beyond the scoreline. The refurbished Azteca became the first stadium to stage matches at three World Cups, after 1970 and 1986, and teenager Gilberto Mora came off the bench to become the youngest player ever to represent a host nation at a World Cup, and the sixth-youngest debutant in the tournament’s history. The two-goal margin was Mexico’s first multi-goal World Cup win since they beat Croatia 3-1 in 2014.
The result also offered redemption after a group-stage exit at Qatar 2022 that ended seven straight runs to the last 16. Manager Javier Aguirre knows sterner tests wait in Group A. But for one night, the story that shadowed Mexico’s World Cup opener for generations finally bent the other way — and the oldest stadium in the game shook with the relief of it.
Sources: FIFA, ESPN match feature, ESPN match report, ESPN stats, CNN, beIN Sports, Bolavip, NBC News.
