In front of approximately 80,000 enthusiastic fans, Mexico started the 2026 World Cup with a victory. The co-hosts easily defeated South Africa 2-0 at the “hot” “Azteca” stadium in the premiere of the 1st group of the competition and laid the foundations early for qualification to the “32”. 

The score opened very early, just in the 13th minute with Quinones taking advantage of a disastrous mistake by Sitole. The scorer also hit the post in the 42nd minute, while Sitole emerged as a fatal player for “Bafana Bafana”. In the 49th minute he brought down Brian Gutierrez outside the area, depriving him of an obvious chance to score. A red card and now the match had taken its course. In the 67th minute from a cross by Alvarado, Raul Jimenez headed home the 2-0, celebrating his 46th goal with “El Tri” with emotion. In the 84th minute, Zwane was also sent off for an off-field tackle to complete the… dramatic premiere for South Africa. In stoppage time, Mexican Cesar Montes was also sent off, so the match had more red cards than goals!

AEK’s Orbelin Pineda and PAOK’s Jorge Sanchez remained on the bench.

Referee: Wilton Sampaio (Brazil)
Yellow: Gutierrez – Mokoena, Simbisi
Red: Montes (90+2′) – Sitole (49′), Zwane (84′) – lose their teams’ next match
Lineups:

The line ups:
MEXICO (Javier Aguirre): Rangel, Reyes, Montes, Vazquez, Gallardo, Lira (76′ Alvarez), Alvarado, Quinones (79′ Vega), Fidalgo (66′ Mora), Gutierrez (66′ Chavez), Jimenez (76′ Gonzales).
SOUTH AFRICA (Hugo Bros): Williams, Mundo, Ocon, Simbisi, Bokazi, Modimba (77′ Apolis), Sitole, Mokoena, Adams (61′ Zwane), Reiners (77′ Makgopa), Foster (56′ Bata).