Mexico Looks to Make a Statement at Expanded 2026 FIFA World Cup

The World Cup is here. At 3 p.m. ET the 23rd edition of the biggest tournament in soccer kicks off at the Azteca Stadium, hosts Mexico getting the ball rolling against South Africa. In the 96-year history of this competition, there have only been a handful of stagings that have been this charged, this contentious and this hotly debated and that is saying something given that the World Cup has always been as much a political event as a footballing one.

At least from this afternoon onwards, there will be some of the latter to discuss and discuss it we shall over the next 39 days. Over that time I'll be dropping on here every morning to talk about what I'll be keeping an eye out for in the games of the day. Usually, I will have a slightly greater volume of fixtures to discuss, but for now let's dive into the first of the three nations staging the tournament. Mexico, eh, those results look pretty decent, don't they?

1. Is Mexico's form real?

It is not so long ago that the talk was of a meaningful and potentially lasting shift in the power dynamics of CONCACAF football. Winning the first three Nations League titles around the 2021 Gold Cup seemed to have established the USMNT as top dogs in the region such that they could dismiss the tournaments that they did not win as the ones where they were rolling out their second stringers. Mexico looked a weakened force, one that failed to escape what should have been an inviting group stage at the last World Cup and that was being routinely beaten by their northern neighbors, who went unbeaten in seven straight between 2021 and March 2024. A few weeks after that El Tri crashed out of Copa America at the group stage, scoring only once and losing to Venezuela.

Bringing back Javier Aguirre for a third go at the job looks to be something of a watershed moment for Mexico. Since the Copa America Mexico have won both the Nations League and the Gold Cup, impressively coming from a goal down against the United States in Houston to lift the trophy for the 10th time. The only competitive match they have lost in the last two years was to Honduras in the first leg of the Nations League quarterfinals, they won the second by four goals to blitz their way through.

Now of course as hosts of the World Cup and with their qualification assured, Mexico have been playing a lot of friendlies. And those results look great. Since the start of 2025 they have only lost to Mexico, Colombia and Paraguay , while they have beaten Turkey, Saudi Arabia , Iceland , Ghana , Australia and Serbia . They have six draws against teams in the top 25 of FIFA's world rankings: Japan , South Korea, Ecuador , Uruguay , Portugal and Belgium . In the 29 post-Copa friendlies and competitive games for which we have data, their xG looks very impressive.

The only question I really have is about the squad. Raul Jimenez has enjoyed something of an Indian summer with Fulham while Edson Alvarez and Orbelin Pineda had nice seasons with Fenerbahce and AEK Athens. Those are your prime age players, but a lot of the excitement is around the kids: 22-year-old Mateo Chavez, Obed Vargas (20) of Atletico Madrid and a potential breakout youngster of the tournament in 17-year-old Gilberto Mora. There are not a lot of guys who are at their true prime age, playing at the very highest level.

What there is, though, is home advantage for most of this tournament and a squad that includes 10 players with over 50 caps. This is a group that knows each other well and seems to have harnessed something lately. Build momentum against South Africa and this team could have an intriguing World Cup ahead of them.

How to watch Mexico vs. South Africa

Date:  Thursday, June 11 |  Time: 3 p.m. ET Location:  Mexico City Stadium -- Mexico City, Mexico TV:  FOX |  Live stream:   Fubo  (Try for free) Odds:  Mexico -240; Draw +360; South Africa +800

2. Could South Africa deliver breakout stars?

What we might expect of South Africa is even more unknowable. Though a 48-team tournament comes with many drawbacks, the expansion of teams from Africa and Asia does at least deliver a few more representatives that fulfil that old World Cup trope: the side that rock up with a squad list of which you are largely unfamiliar, something that makes them all the more intriguing in the process.

This is clearly a strong team. After all, they overcame their own administrative catastrophes -- the fielding of vice-captain Teboho Mokoena for a qualifier against Lesotho when he should have been serving a suspension resulted in a three-point penalty -- and a talented Nigeria side to get here. The Mamelodi Sundowns side from which eight of the squad are drawn were one of the highlights of last summer's drab Club World Cup, drawing with Fluminense and pushing Borussia Dortmund hard before losing by the odd goal in seven.

MLS viewers will be familiar with two of Hugo Broos' defense and Mbekezeli Mbokazi of Chicago Fire profiles as a very promising young center back. Per Gradient Sports, the 19-year-old ranks second among center backs in the division for clearances this season, while Opta ranks him third for duel success rate and 12th for total shots blocked. Sphephelo Sithole has won strong reviews in Portugal for his performances with Tondela; it is never bad for a midfielder to earn the nickname Yaya.

So perhaps there are a few in this South Africa squad that might surprise it. It's hard to really know, but that is a joy that football does not often provide us in 2026.

3. When will the World Cup fever strike?

The prospect of what South Africa might be, of whether Uzbekistan could have an upset in them, of which team might shock the world a time or two: these are the sorts of things that usually have me needing a doctor right now. I should have a fever and the only prescription is more Curacao .

And yet, I'm just not getting it. This isn't a vehicle for a British writer to discuss the hosting of a World Cup by the United States beyond saying that large-scale sporting events are always political vehicles in one way or another. For years there are questions about the hosts' politics, ethics, ways of doing business and how FIFA or the IOC might intermingle with them. And while they are not washed away when the ball gets rolling, there are thrills to be got from the football.

World Cup 2026 rooting guide: One reason to support each of the 48 teams participating in global spectacle Sandra Herrera

In 2026, for footballing reasons, even if you manage to block out the noise from every other angle, I'm not sure how true that's going to be. And that comes down to the tournament structure. A World Cup should start with a bang. The stakes need to be high from the off. Many of the competition's abiding memories since it moved to 32 teams in 1998 have come at the group stage. Think of defending champions like France , Spain and Germany taking tumbles. Slovenia vs. USMNT 2010. Mario Balotelli and Luis Suarez puncturing the English bubble.

The group stages matter because there is real jeopardy in trimming half of a competition in the course of three games. This year we go from 48 to 32, with eight of the 12 best placed third-placed teams going through. As someone who has had the misfortune to try to pick every World Cup game and work out which third placers land on which path, I can tell you there's no fun to be had in cycling through the 495 possible permutations to fill in your predictive wall chart. You know how it goes, you make two wall charts for the tournament, one that you fill in in pencil with what you think is going to happen and one in pen with what does. This is normal behaviour, right?

Don't you judge me!

Anyway, the format reeks of a slog. Suppose that like me you are skeptical about what Germany might achieve at this World Cup, a squad that might be unbalanced and could struggle against good opponents in Ecuador and Ivory Coast . Four years ago there might be jeopardy to their early campaign. Instead there is every possibility that they beat Curacao so well in their first game that they are effectively locked into the last 32 three days into the competition. It is nigh on impossible to find a group where a big team might fail to qualify. Maybe, maybe, maybe the Netherlands don't get past Japan, Sweden and Tunisia . Maybe. All of this is to say nothing of how imbalanced qualification is for a team vying for third in Group A who might not know if they can shade a draw and one in Group K who will know exactly what is required.

Maybe a good team fluffs its lines and scrabbles into a tough round of 32 tie. At last by then the stakes will be raised. We'll just have had to slog our way through the best of three weeks to trim this tournament to a manageable level. A long road ahead of us, I guess.

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_Originally reported by [CBS Sports](https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/fifa-world-cup-2026-mexico-what-to-watch/)._