The 2026 World Cup kicked off with a match between Mexico and South Africa at the historic Estadio Azteca, a venue steeped in football lore. Despite pre-tournament controversies, the stadium's magical aura took center stage. Mexico secured a 2-0 victory, highlighted by Raúl Jiménez's emotional goal-his first in a World Cup-at the age of 35. The win transformed the opening from potential dread into a joyous celebration of football, Mexico's national pride, and the resilience of a player who overcame a severe skull injury. The atmosphere was electric, with fans creating a festive scene that honored the sport's ability to inspire beyond bureaucratic conflicts.
For all the strife, greed, grift, and grandstanding that has pockmarked the build-up to this tournament, for all the claims of betrayal and desecration its troubled cradling has provoked, the 2026 World Cup began with a blessing in the Azteca Stadium on Thursday afternoon.
All the controversy was swept away for a little while as the tournament dawned in a magnificent cathedral of football that has witnessed some of the World Cup's most beautiful moments and provided the stage for some of its greatest heroes. As Mexico and South Africa took to the pitch here just before 1 pm, it was impossible not to stare down at that hallowed expanse of turf and imagine Pelé standing on the edge of the area and playing the most exquisite simple square pass that has ever been played and Carlos Alberto running on to it and smashing it into the goal.
That was Brazil's fourth goal in the 1970 World Cup final against Italy here, the greatest goal that has ever been scored. It was impossible, too, not to imagine Diego Maradona receiving the ball in the centre circle late in the 1986 final against West Germany and playing a brilliant first-time ball to set Jorge Burruchaga free for the winning goal.
It was here, too, where Maradona scored his infamous 'Hand of God' goal against England 40 years ago and so it was here where he scored the greatest individual goal in World Cup history when he dribbled past most of the England team before poking his shot past Peter Shilton. The ghosts of those games whose magic is stamped on our memories were here to give their benediction to this World Cup of 48 teams and 104 matches and to begin the process of sluicing away the discontent that has preceded it.
Raul Jimenez scored emotional second goal for Mexico in their 2-0 win over South Africa in the opening match of the World Cup. Jimenez, 35, scored at the World Cup for the first time to cap an incredible career that has seen the forward battle back from suffering a career-threatening fractured skull. The forward's effort helped turn the opening match into a party atmosphere at the Azteca.
And if some had feared this match would be the beginning of a long lament stretching all the way to the final at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on July 19th, Mexico had other ideas. They turned the lament into an uproarious party, a joyous manifestation of the emotions the game can unleash and the stories it tells. This was a game of three red cards but that was not the story. This story was Raul Jimenez's to tell.
It is six years since Jimenez fractured his skull in a game for Wolverhampton Wanderers against Arsenal, an injury many feared he would never return from. But he did return and this is his fourth World Cup.
But Jimenez had never scored a goal at the tournament and then at the Azteca, at the age of 35, in the opening game of a home World Cup, Jimenez put all that right with the header that made the game safe for Mexico. And, if sometimes in the past months, some have regarded this tournament as something to dread, here in the Azteca, it felt as if there were, at last, a celebration.
It was a celebration of fervour and of Mexico's national pride and it was a celebration of the joy of football beyond the reach of bureaucrats. This is the Mother Stadium of the modern World Cup, the only arena to have hosted the opening game three times and a place that creates legends and bestows a kind of immortality on those who excel here. Jimenez has his place in its history, too, now.
The place was alive with energy and anticipation for hours before kick-off. Fans carried cans of Corona up the wide, winding walkways that feel as if they are climbing to the skies. Food-sellers worked the concourses selling chimichangas and tacos. Before kick-off, the crowd flung thousands of paper sombreros down from their seats and they rained like confetti.
Mexico City is 7350 ft above sea level and by the time you get to the top tier, you have added considerably to that total. The aisles that climb between the seats are so steep they make your head swim. The Opening Ceremony, 90 minutes before the start, built the atmosphere even more and in the seconds before the start, the smell of cordite filled the air and the Mexican air-force performed a fly-past. The stadium was at fever pitch.
A great roar from the stands, where the steps are so steep they make your head swim and the altitude clutches at your chest, marked the moment that Jimenez, who has returned to Wolves from Fulham, took the first touch of this World Cup from the kick-off
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