By Daniel Feuerstein | Mexico City, MX | June 11th, 2026
The opening match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup was played at the famed Estadio Azteca as one of the three host nations in Mexico took on South Africa, and it would be a repeat opener from South Africa in 2010. With a heavy home crowd for Mexico, they were ready and attacking the net, while South Africa were nervous and couldn’t sustain any attacking runs, and defended very poorly in this match. Once the final whistle blew, Mexico, down a man, defeated South Africa, who were down two men, by a final score of two goals to nil.
Mexico scored timely goals.
The first goal of the match for Mexico came early, within the first ten minutes of the match. As the goalkeeper Ronwen Williams distributed the ball to his defenders, Erik Lira snuck in and forced a loose ball near the South Africa area to try and create a chance. But trailing the play was Julian Quinones, as he got to the ball and smashed a hard shot past the keeper to put Mexico ahead in the 9th minute. From that point on, Mexico kept attacking but were stopped by Williams’ goalkeeping and nailed the near post.
Mexico got its second goal of the match on a brilliant play attacking down the far side. Roberto Alvarado is going down along the far side touchline with a defender on him, looked up and saw Raul Jimenez making a run toward the back post. With a lovely cross toward Jimenez, a leaping snap header was buried inside the back post for his first career World Cup goal and celebrated in front of the dominant Mexican crowd in the 67th minute.
Red Cards were a factor
While there were two World Cup Goals scored, the red cards dominated the match and went against South Africa. Brian Gutierrez was attacking towards the South Africa area, and coming up from behind him was South Africa’s Sphephelo Sithole. Once Sithole bodied himself on Gutierrez from behind, brought him down just outside the area, and forced refereeWilton Sampaio to pull out the red card from his back pocket in the 49th minute and put South Africa down to 10 men.
The second Red Card came during a VAR review when Alvarado was trying to defend against Themba Zwane, making a run towards the ball. What looked like a regular foul, getting pushed down to the ground, on replay, saw Zwane with a clinched fist, took a swing, and hit Alvarado in the face. The referee had no choice after watching the video on the monitor, announced to the crowd that Zwane would be sent off in the 84th minute, and put South Africa down to nine men.
Then Mexico would have a turn seeing red, for a challenge that shouldn’t have been committed. Seven Minutes of second half stoppage time were added as South Africa were making an attacking run down the near side. In the second minute of seven, Khuliso Mudau had the ball just outside the area, and Cesar Montes came from the left side and took down Mudau from his attacking run, giving the referee the chance to award Montes the straight red card. A silly challenge when you are up two men and up two goals. While nothing came from that, Montes will be suspended for the next Group A match.
South Africa was horrible all match long
From the opening whistle, South Africa looked horrible and just couldn’t string anything together. Poor communication, poor play, looked lost for the entire 90 minutes. Two men were sent off for poor play and allowing their frustrations to get the better of them. South African Head Coach Hugo Henri Broos has a lot of work ahead of him to rally the troops and get them to refocus and insert two new players into the starting 11 when they face Czechia on Thursday, June 18th, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.
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