This is Mexico's 18th appearance at the World Cup and the third time as hosts. As in 1986 and 1970, the aim is to reach at least the quarter-finals.
02.06.2026, 05:01
02.06.2026, 07:07
SDA
Unlike in the USA and Canada, the anticipation of the World Cup in Mexico began early. In the capital, where the tournament begins on June 11 with the match against South Africa, the opening day was declared a public holiday. From the legendary Azteca Stadium, where Pele (1970) and Diego Maradona (1986) won World Cup finals, Mexico's national team will finally play their way through at least part of the knockout phase once again.
It has been 40 years since Mexico survived a World Cup knockout round match for the only time to date and reached the quarter-finals for the second time since 1970. In front of over 110,000 spectators at the Azteca Stadium, the team coached by Bora Milutinovic and star striker Hugo Sanchez beat Bulgaria 2-0 in the round of 16 before falling to eventual finalists Germany on penalties.
Since then, the capacity of the home arena has been reduced to 80,000, but the football euphoria in Mexico has not diminished. Four sports newspapers report daily on football events. The clubs in the top league play in front of over 20,000 spectators on average and pay their best stars so well that there are surprisingly few players from Mexico in Europe's leagues. The most famous of these are striker Raul Jimenez from Fulham and captain Edson Alvarez from Fenerbahce Istanbul.
The chaotic dinner before the World Cup
Experts are divided on the prospects of success for the current edition of "El Tri". Bad luck with injuries has meant that one or two of this year's hoped-for key players have already had to take a break and will either not make it to the tournament at all or will do so with an uncertain level of form. Even though Mexico triumphed at the Gold Cup, the continental competition of Central America and the Caribbean, last summer, question marks remain over the potential of the team, which is being coached by Javier Aguirre for the third time.
The 67-year-old Aguirre, known as "el Vasco" because of his Basque roots, places great value on discipline and cohesion. He has also demonstrated this in his third term of office, which began last July and will end after the World Cup with the handover to his assistant Rafael Marquez. Just over a month before the opening game of the World Cup, he summoned all the home national team players to a dinner together, even though some of them were still involved in play-offs or international competitions at home. "Anyone who doesn't turn up won't be at the World Cup," decided Aguirre.
The media followed the players, whose clubs had initially resisted the national team's order, live and with great excitement. All of them appeared on time, filmed by patient media people. ESPN wrote: "The team is complete. Thus ends the most chaotic 24 hours the national team has experienced in recent years." After this memorable episode at the start of the long preparation phase, the legionnaires steadily joined the team.
In the best case scenario to Miami
"Our aim is to put on the best World Cup in Mexico's history, and we're working hard to achieve that," says Aguirre, who failed to reach the last 16 of the World Cup with "El Tri" in 2002 and 2010. Like all other Mexican national coaches since 1986, he also missed out on the World Cup quarter-finals, "El Quinto Partido" as the fans say in one breath. Between 1994 and 2018, Mexico failed to reach the round of 16 seven times in a row; in Qatar, the tournament last ended after the preliminary round.
This summer, the starting position is better, even if Mexico have already sent more talented teams into the World Cup race. With South Africa, South Korea and the Czech Republic, the preliminary round opponents in Group A are all beatable, especially in front of a home crowd. As group winners, they would then go through to the round of 16 and the round of 16 in Mexico. Only the long-awaited quarter-final would take place outside the country's borders. Should it come to that, the game in Miami would certainly also be a home game.
