PACHUCA — South Africa’s World Cup squad arrived in central Mexico this week expecting a smooth training camp and instead discovered a city that appears to have been designed specifically to discourage the formation of vacation thoughts.
The team’s delayed trip to Mexico was already complicated by visa issues, but the deeper adjustment came on arrival in Pachuca, where the air is cooler, the altitude is higher and the nearest beach is still stubbornly absent from the horizon.
They weren’t smiling for long. (@BafanaBafana/X)
Players and staff were reportedly briefed on local conditions after landing, including the inconvenient fact that Pachuca is not a resort town, does not operate on a coastal schedule and has no obligation to provide the warm, palm-lined atmosphere many foreign visitors seem to assume comes standard with the word “Mexico.”
The city’s hillside setting, mining history and brisk climate came as a shock to a team that was ready for sun, surf and Mexico’s world famous beaches. Hoping to settle into pre-World Cup rhythm, the adjustment has included jackets, dry air and the sudden realization that not every Mexican host city is built around sunbathing.
One official said the squad had prepared for an international tournament, but not for “a place where the weather reminds you to stretch before breakfast.” Another was said to have asked whether the training base was near the ocean.
By the time training began, South Africa had adapted to the altitude, if not entirely to the discovery that its first opponent in Mexico was not the host nation but the weather.
Whether you're looking for a trainload of tequila or a trip back in time, these Guadaljara day trips are a great way to mix up your next trip to Jalisco. (Pelago)
If you’re planning on being in Guadalajara for the 2026 FIFA World Cup (you’ll be cheering on Mexico’s El Tri, right?), you won’t want to leave this culturally rich metropolitan area without checking out all the activities it has to offer! Leave yourself at least an extra day to explore La Perla Tapatía and the surrounding area!
Read on for our guide to planning your perfect day trip from Guadalajara:
Take a train to tequila’s heartland
Did you know that not far from Guadalajara lies the place where tequila was born? If you didn’t already know, tequila originally comes from the Jalisco town of Tequila, and it’s a short train ride from Guadalajara.
Catch the Jose Cuervo Sunrise Express Wagon Train from a restored train station in the city, only 30 minutes from the hip Colonia Americana neighborhood. It’s a great way not only to celebrate Mexico’s most famous liquor but also to have a bonding experience with tourists from around the world.
A couple of years ago, intrepid Mexico expat and MND writer Bethany Platanella put aside her worries that a train ride run by Mexico’s foremost tequila maker might kill her with kitsch or annoy her with drunken bachelor parties on board and reported for us the ins and outs of taking the so-called “tequila train.”
She had a blast, from the elegant dining car and the mariachi concert in the Pueblo Mágico of Tequila to the distillery tour and the bus ride to the countryside to see agave fields up close. She highly recommended it all. Get the full scoop below.
Beyond Chichén Itzá: Discover Jalisco’s ancient civilization
Mention Mexico’s ancient civilizations, and everybody thinks of the Aztecs. Or the Maya. But for thousands of years, before the Spanish colonists arrived, Mexico had a diverse array of distinct Indigenous peoples spread throughout the country, including in Jalisco. An hour car ride away from Guadalajara lies the mysterious Guachimontones ruins, the capital of the ancient Teuchitlán people.
A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Guachimontones is located outside the Jalisco town of Teuchitlán. While the pyramids of Chichen Itzá on the Yucatán Peninsula and Teotihuacán in Mexico state are more popular with visitors, Guachimontones has pyramids too — and they’re fascinatingly circular, different than the square or rectangular structures found at other ancient Mexican sites. The site also has some of the largest ancient ball courts in Mesoamerica.
The Teuchitlán culture predated the Mexica (Aztec) civilization but were contemporaries of the Yucatán Maya. They were known to other civilizations of their time for their ability to craft obsidian into weapons and tools.
If you’d like to know more about the history of Guachimontones and its modern-day discovery by archeologist Phil Weigand and his wife Acelia in the 1960s, check out MND writer John Pint’s fascinating article from 2019, where he talks to Weigand himself. If you’d just like to know about taking a day trip from Guadalajara to Guachimontones — how to get there and what to see — read on below.
Want a day trip that won’t take you far outside Guadalajara but will feel like it did? If you’re not afraid of a little walking through nature, consider visiting Guadalajara’s world-renowned Primavera Forest. Where Guadalajara’s city limits end is where the Bosque Primavera begins.
Home to 742 species of flora, 200 birds and 59 mammals, this biologically diverse forest was declared a protected area and wildlife reserve by Mexico in 1980 and was named a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 2006. It’s also home to the Primavera Caldera, a volcano that erupted dramatically 94,000 years ago. The blocks of pumice left behind, up to 8 meters in diameter, attract curious geologists worldwide.
The forest also has interpretative walking trails to see the impressive pumice artifacts. There are also boiling-hot rivers and fumaroles to be found here. For the more active visitor, there are opportunities to mountain bike through the forest.
MND John Pint has lived in Guadalajara for decades and told us all about this natural wonder close to home in a 2023 article. He highly recommends visiting. Find out more below.
Spend an afternoon in Guadalajara’s coolest suburb
Guadalajara is hosting World Cup matches this summer — and while the Estadio Akron will draw the crowds, the city’s most rewarding experiences might lie one metro stop away. Downtown Zapopan, the compact historic heart of one of Mexico’s wealthiest municipalities, trades Guadalajara’s traffic and tourist traps for a 17th-century basilica, a respected contemporary art museum, and a pedestrian street lined with galleries and antiques vendors.
Eat at Doña Gabina Escolástica (arrive before 2 p.m. or queue), drink Argentine wine at Res Pública Parrilla, and finish with a single-origin coffee at one of the area’s excellent independent cafés.
Yes, this actually happened. In 1997, a team in the top tier of Mexican soccer, Toros Neza, took the field wearing Halloween masks. (Leyendas del Fútbol Mexicano)
The year is 1997. It’s the quarter-finals of the top-division Mexican soccer league (today known as BBVA Liga MX). Club León, one of the country’s most decorated franchises, is set to face off against Toros Neza, an unlikely expansion team from the outskirts of Mexico City that has only been in existence for less than a decade.
As the two teams take the field, a scene unfolds that probably will never again occur at the professional level. The Toros Neza players, fully uniformed, walk onto the pitch bedecked in a random assortment of Halloween masks: Bart Simpson, Gene Simmons, Freddie Krueger, a werewolf and an ex-Mexican president, among others. The colorful soccer team from the city of Nezahualcóyotl assembles midfield for the standard pre-game photos, still completely masked, during a high-stakes match. And then the game begins.
They would go on to lose and be eliminated from the tournament as one of the best teams that season. But the image of them gathered while wearing their masks is perhaps the most emblematic moment of the team’s short-lived, explosively unpredictable history.
A meteoric rise and collapse
In only a few years, Toros Neza took the professional Mexican soccer world by storm, rivaling the most historic and successful teams in the country before collapsing as rapidly as they had surged.
Today, they are a mythic squad of the 1990s, as representative of Mexico City’s scrappy working-class identity as they were of Mexico’s passionate soccer culture. Though they no longer exist, their reputation endures in the hearts of many longtime Mexican soccer fans. A recent documentary series by ViX, titled “Toros Neza,” has brought renewed attention to the iconic team, which is unlike any other in Mexican pro soccer history. Here’s their story.
The unlikely origins of professional soccer in Nezahualcóyotl
Located just northeast of Mexico City’s Benito Juárez International Airport in Estado de México, Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl is a densely populated suburb with a population of over one million. Named after Nezahualcóyotl, a famed Indigenous poet and philosopher, the relatively young municipality was officially founded in 1963, following the draining of Lake Texcoco. However, in the 1940s, it began to grow informally as a settlement for Mexican migrants from around the country. With limited housing options and frequent flooding, the area was often avoided by those with more promising options. But the region attracted desperate working-class families hoping for better opportunities and proximity to the nation’s capital.
It has never been the kind of famed capital or regional gem that would attract a successful professional sports team and investors — though it did serve as a host site for the 1986 FIFA World Cup, which global celebrities like Rod Stewart and Diego Maradona would attend. But somehow, against the odds, Nezahualcóyotl (or, Neza York, as locals playfully refer to it as) became the unlikely epicenter of professional soccer in Mexico – if only briefly. The national government did its best to cover up the area’s surrounding poverty, but it only added to Neza’s unique status in Mexico’s soccer imagination.
The birth of Toros Neza
The city’s regional soccer pride first took off in 1978, when Club Deportivo Neza (also referred to by their logo, the Coyotes) was created after the city of Neza purchased and relocated Club de Fútbol Laguna from Torreón, Coahuila. A second-division unit, the Coyotes lasted until 1988. Earlier in the decade, in 1981, a semi-professional sports stadium was built for the team, which would become the genesis for hosting the aforementioned World Cup, despite the Mexican Football Federation expressing security and safety concerns. Years later, that stadium would be deemed unsafe for fans, requiring temporary closure and the team’s interim relocation to Pachuca, Hidalgo.
For a decade in the 1990s, Toros Neza were Mexico’s wildest soccer renegades, producing legendary names like Antonio “El Turco” Mohamed, Miguel “El Piojo” Herrera, Guillermo Vázquez, Rodrigo “Pony” Ruiz and more. (Liga BBVA MX)
After the Coyotes shuttered at the end of the 1980s, the door opened for Neza’s next, and better prepared, team to lead the charge through the 90s: Toros Neza. Backed by Mexican business mogul Juan Antonio Hernández, the Toros had enough financial muscle to make a real run into Mexico’s top tier of soccer. Behind the ambition of Antonio Hernández, the city of Neza converted itself into a national soccer powerhouse in 1991 — despite the doubters.
A decade as Mexico’s underdog darlings
Starting in the second division like the Coyotes, Toros Neza quickly dominated their way through the lower-tier teams, advancing up to the Mexican first-class by way of league promotion in 1992. What initially set them apart was their ability to go after international, high-profile players: a Swiss goalie and a group of Chilean, Brazilian and Argentine players and coaches to go along with rising Mexican nationals, some of whom would later go on to become generational icons and eternal memes in the soccer world.
Remembered for their bright red jerseys with the geometric silhouette of a charging bull on the chest, as well as the dyed hair styles and vibrant personalities of their rebellious players, Toros Neza became a team of the barrio — scrappy, resilient and unwavering, like the economically struggling city they represented.
Among the central figures were Antonio “El Turco” Mohamed, Miguel “El Piojo” Herrera, Federico Lussenhoff, Pablo Larios Iwasaki, Rodrigo “El Pony” Ruiz and Nidelson Silva da Melo. The team blazed off to a promising debut against América in Estadio Azteca in 1993 with a victory against Mexico’s top-funded, legendary club. Just a few years later, as a young and still relatively unproven team, they would inevitably reach the league championship against the famed Chivas de Guadalajara in 1997 (a cinderella story that ended in crushing defeat, as one of their star players couldn’t participate for personal misconduct reasons).
A team of destiny … almost
To be sure, the team was entertaining to watch on the field: at their best, delivering a series of poetic, coordinated passes in perfect unison that would end with a trick shot past the opposing defenders and goalie. The team was offensive-minded, brash, aggressive and played a style of smashmouth soccer (by Mexican standards) that involved scoring plenty of goals, rather than hunkering down on the defensive side — which some teams are more prone to do— and resulted in a more tempered flow of the game. Having such an explosive, unpredictable style, though, sometimes backfired, as the team would have stretches of discombobulated play, lack of leadership and internal frustrations (see: players voting other players off the team).
In the span of a few seasons, the team burned through three coaches, and the players later admitted that no coach would have been able to wrangle in so many big, clashing personalities. Their apex season in 1997, which ended in a championship loss against the better-equipped Chivas, highlighted the team’s biggest strengths and weaknesses: themselves. The players ultimately couldn’t get their act together, with off-field antics, mismanagement and the temptations of fame derailing at least a few careers in their primes.
Toros Neza’s legendary jerseys, with the bull logo, remain collector’s items. (Instagram)
The rest of their existence was brief from that point forward — their best players left to get paid elsewhere, veteran replacement players couldn’t replicate the lightning-bolt success of prior years (the team even recruited Brazilian legend Bebeto, well past his prime), and by 2002, the team folded, nearly as unexpectedly as they had sprung up.
Legendary moments and a lasting legacy
Among their notoriously on-brand moments? In a friendly scrimmage, Toros Neza agreed to play against the Jamaican national team at an amateur field in Toluca. Just a couple of minutes into the lightly officiated game, a fight-turned-brawl broke out, with reports of weapons being flashed, including a gun from the Jamaican side.
On the positive side, the Toros were also responsible for initiating changes in the Mexican league that are still in effect today. During their peak, Neza owner Antonio Hernández invited every other first-division team owner from around Mexico to his home in Cuernavaca and together they drafted a new system of play, which notably divided the long season into two separate mini-tournaments, known as the Clausura and Apertura (a system that is still in use decades later).
The flippant, if not anarchistic, squad delivered some of Mexico’s most beautifully reckless soccer and brought an entire region of Mexico that had forever been overlooked along with them. For a variety of reasons, there will likely never be another team, or era, in Mexican soccer like Toros Neza.
Alan Chazaro is the author of “These Spaceships Weren’t Built For Us” (Tia Chucha Press, 2026), “Notes from the Eastern Span of the Bay Bridge” (Ghost City Press, 2021), “Piñata Theory” (Black Lawrence Press, 2020), and “This Is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album” (Black Lawrence Press, 2019). He is a graduate of June Jordan’s Poetry for the People program at UC Berkeley and was selected as a Lawrence Ferlinghetti Poetry Fellow at the University of San Francisco. His work can be found in NPR, The Guardian, SLAM, GQ, L.A. Times, and more. He is currently based in Veracruz.
On Sunday, President Claudia Sheinbaum led a rally at the Monument to the Revolution in honor of the second anniversary of her election in 2024. (Hazel Cárdenas/Cuartoscuro)
Against the backdrop of festive preparations, the first week of June proved to be one of the most charged of Claudia Sheinbaum’s presidency: a landmark sovereignty speech, an escalating diplomatic spat with Washington and a rare statement from former president AMLO indicated a growing impatience with what Mexico City increasingly views as Washington’s overreach into sovereign affairs.
Didn’t have time to catch this week’s top stories? Here’s what you missed.
Sheinbaum draws the line at Sunday rally
Mexico “is not anyone’s piñata.” With those words, President Claudia Sheinbaum opened the most combative chapter yet of her relationship with the United States, delivering a forceful 65-minute address to 130,000 supporters gathered before the Monument to the Revolution on Sunday — the weekend of the second anniversary of her election.
She named two U.S. actions as unacceptable violations of Mexican sovereignty: the alleged participation of CIA officers in an April drug raid in Chihuahua without federal authorization, and a Justice Department extradition request for Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya and nine other officials filed without publicly presenting evidence. “An action of that magnitude has no precedent in the history of our bilateral relationship,” she said of the latter.
Sheinbaum drew a line between cooperation and submission — vowing to continue sharing intelligence to stop drug trafficking while insisting that foreign agents must operate within Mexican law — and raised pointed questions about whether U.S. pressure was driven by genuine anti-crime intent or by domestic electoral politics ahead of November midterms. Regional analysts called it her strongest sovereignty rhetoric to date.
Over 100,000 people gathered in support of President Sheinbaum on Sunday at Mexico City’s Monument to the Revolution. (Hazel Cárdenas/Presidencia)
Ambassador Johnson fires back, and Sheinbaum responds
The day after the rally, U.S. Ambassador Ronald Johnson posted a pointed message on social media — without naming Sheinbaum — arguing that the fight against cartels must not be politicized.
“The fight against cartels should unite us, not divide us,” he wrote.
“People on both sides of our border want to live safely and in peace. They deserve freedom from the intimidation, corruption, and fear that the cartels inflict. Every moment spent turning this shared security challenge into a political dispute is a missed opportunity to strengthen our partnership and protect the people we serve.”
Sheinbaum replied at Tuesday’s mañanera, agreeing on the need for cooperation but pointedly reminding Johnson that ambassadors are expected to stay out of a host country’s internal affairs. Her own ambassadors, she noted, do not comment on the domestic politics of the countries where they are posted. The exchange crystallized the week’s central tension: both sides insist they want cooperation, but cannot agree on where cooperation ends and interference begins.
AMLO breaks his silence
Three days after Sheinbaum’s rally speech, a five-page statement appeared on former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s personal website under the heading “My unconditional support for President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo and a Respectful Reflection on President Donald Trump” — AMLO’s first significant public statement since leaving office in 2024.
Writing from his ranch in Palenque, the former president accused U.S. officials of running an “interventionist” campaign to weaken Morena ahead of Mexico’s 2027 elections, and argued that the Trump of today was a different man from the one he had dealt with in the first term — less personally engaged and more susceptible to “resentful and fanatical advisers” steering him toward “vile and sinister adventures.” His closing appeal: “For the good of all, may the other Trump return.” Sheinbaum thanked him for his “unconditional support” at Thursday’s mañanera.
The pressure on Mexico’s governors intensified on two fronts. On Wednesday, The Los Angeles Times reported that the United States is investigating two additional Morena-affiliated governors: Sonora’s Alfonso Durazo for alleged organized crime ties and Tamaulipas’ Américo Villarreal Anaya for suspected fuel smuggling, with both men reportedly having their U.S. visas revoked. Sheinbaum acknowledged the report but said the governors must answer for themselves, then questioned the motive behind making the visa cancellations public.
As Mexico City counts down to the World Cup, the dissident CNTE teachers’ union has set up a protest encampment in the historic center, near where tens of thousands of fans are expected to gather on match days.
In a June 1 letter from Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Canadian Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc, Mexico formally requested a 16-year extension of the USMCA through 2042. Canada submitted a parallel request the next day. The move followed the conclusion of the first formal round of bilateral review talks, which covered automotive rules of origin, steel, aluminum and economic security; a second round is scheduled for Washington June 16-17.
The United States’ enthusiasm remains the central unknown: Trump has called the agreement “irrelevant” to him. Adding a new wrinkle, the USTR this week proposed 10% tariffs on 60 countries, including Mexico, over forced-labor concerns — though the Economy Ministry confirmed that USMCA-compliant goods, roughly 85% of Mexico’s export volume, would be exempt.
New arrests bring 2 major cases closer to justice
Authorities arrested the alleged intellectual author of the murders of Vizsla Silver executives, closing a case involving the killing of mining company officials that had drawn significant attention to violence in Mexico’s resource sector.
An ex-soldier was arrested in California in connection with his alleged role in the 2014 Ayotzinapa mass disappearance of 43 students, one of the most high-profile and unresolved tragedies in modern Mexican history.
What are Mexico’s chances at this World Cup?
Goldman Sachs, applying their financial modeling tools to the 48-team tournament, gives El Tri just a 0.8% chance of winning it all — 12th in the field, tied with Senegal and Ecuador. The bank’s model makes Spain the heavy favorite at roughly 26%, followed by France (19%) and Argentina (14%). Goldman is more bullish on Mexico’s group stage, projecting a sweep of Group A including a 2-0 win over South Africa on June 11, with 95.6% odds of reaching the expanded round of 32 — but Mexico’s odds of reaching the final sit at 3.4%, and of winning it, essentially a rounding error at 0.8%.
Authorities warned fans of surging World Cup ticket scams, with the FBI naming dozens of fraudulent websites and cybersecurity firms estimating total scam portals may number in the thousands.
The MND Peso Index™ for May 2026
The second edition of the MND Peso Index™ — Mexico News Daily’s proprietary monthly purchasing power parity measure — found the Mexican peso overvalued by just over 4% against the U.S. dollar as of late May. The MND Peso Rate, derived from a standardized basket of 20 goods and services compared across Mexico and Dallas, came in at 18.02 pesos per dollar, against a Banxico FIX rate of 17.32 on May 26 — a wider gap than the 2.83% overvaluation recorded in April. Monex USA CEO John Doyle, who reviewed the index methodology, told MND his firm is forecasting a year-end rate of 17.90, consistent with both editions of the index so far.
Other business developments to watch
Spain and Mexico signed an agreement to double bilateral trade by 2030 and significantly increase Spanish investment in Mexico, building on the landmark EU-Mexico trade deal concluded in May.
Meanwhile, the OECD cut Mexico’s 2026 GDP growth forecast from 1.3% to 0.8%, citing trade tariffs, fiscal consolidation and policy uncertainty — but raised its 2027 projection from 1.7% to 1.8%, pointing to domestic consumption and lower interest rates as drivers of gradual recovery.
Mexico News Daily
This story contains summaries of original Mexico News Daily articles. The summaries were generated by Claude, then revised and fact-checked by a Mexico News Daily staff editor.
If you own a Mexican cell phone, you now have to officially register it, and by the end of this month. (Priscilla du Preez/Unsplash)
If you’ve been living in Mexico this past year, and you have a Mexican cell phone number, you’ve got a job to do.
Chances are, you already know what this job is. At least in my own case, Telcel has been sending me weekly reminder messages about registering my cell phone. If I don’t do it by June 30, it warns, my service will cease!
Your cell phone won’t just be locked if you don’t register in person with proper paperwork, but your service will be suspended. (Oscar Nord/Unsplash)
Even so, I’ve been putting it off: just one more thing in the long list of things that have to get done. Taxes, getting my car verificado and filling out all the forms for my kid’s school trip — the list is truly never-ending these days.
But yesterday, I finally did it! It wasn’t the smoothest trámite I’ve gone through in Mexico, but luckily it wasn’t the hardest, either. More on that below.
The reason for the cell phone registry
First, let’s talk about why we need to do it in the first place. Last July,the Mexican government passed the General Law of the National Public Security System. The purpose of the law is to reduce phone-related crime,of which there is quite a bit.
This mostly comes in the form of extortion. Mexico is working hardto cut down on this crime, which,as I’ve written before, has been especially hard to eradicate. It’s practically baked in. Much of this extortion comes in the form of phone calls and text messages. And believe it or not, many of thoseactually happen from prisons.
So one of Mexico’s solutions to try to stop this is to eliminate the possibility of getting phone numbers that aren’t actually tied to an identity. Amazingly, getting those numbers has been super duper easy, all this time.
When I first got my cell phone here in 2004, for example, I simply went to the Telcel store to buy a chip — essentially a phone number — and stuck it in my phone. Voilá! The only way you’d know it was me calling is if I were saved in your phone, and there really wasn’t much of a way to legally tie my name or identity to it.
Besides, in those days, I was extra poor and wouldn’t have dreamed of having an actual phone plan (for which you did need to give all kinds of information). I’d simply go to any tiendita, ask for credit, and — again — voilá, credit on my phone. Simple.
Extortion by phone
Apparently, though, the ease of getting and immediately habilitating any old number has its downsides. And the main one is getting harassed by random strangers demanding money. From prison, or maybe in front of a call center.
Their methods are practiced and specific, and also, I mean, it’s a numbers game. Sooner or later, someone on the other end of the line is going to believe that their child has indeed been kidnapped, which ultimately translates to payday for the caller, or more likely, for the caller’s boss.
In short, this new law is meant to prevent all of that. No more random numbers or calling people to say, “Pay up or your dog is toast.” If this law works the way it’s supposed to, that won’t be possible anymore. You report the threats, and security officials can follow the line to its owner. If you’re going to be a phone criminal now, you can’t be an anonymous one.
All that said, this law is not without its detractors. I’ve seen plenty of videos, for example, of distrustful people alarmed about the government having their “biometric data.” What about our privacy? What are they going to do to protect it?
To this, I give a resounding “meh.” Anyone who still has illusions of privacy in this day and age is kidding themself as far as I’m concerned. Believe me, we are known. We are findable. The thing that makes it not too scary for most of us is that we don’t have much to offer. Humans: mostly not individually interesting enough to be singled out.
Yes, foreigners have to do it, too — if it’s a Mexican cell phone
It’s not an invasion of privacy (well, much of one). Mexico’s new cell phone registry is just a way to keep extortionists at bay. (Sarah DeVries)
I mean, just the amount of information you give away when you download an app is enough to know more about you than even a police report might have had 30 years ago. The time to throw a fit about privacy was back then. Right now, we’ve got bigger fish to fry, my friends.
Anyway! Here we are with our deadline: Register your Mexican phone number before June 30, or lose service.
First, a caveat, as I’ve seen a lot of confused people out there — especially since they say, “And foreigners have to do it, too!”
What they mean is that foreigners have to do it if they have a Mexican number. If you’ve retained your service from your own country and don’t have a Mexican number, then this excludes you. And anyway, you’re presumably “registered” — your number is tied to your identity — in your own country.
The friendly customer service guy stared at my documents, asked the person sitting next to him about them, frowned at his computer and then stared at the documents some more. Why? Because, of course, everything was not in order. Unbeknownst to me, my RFC (not sure why they needed to confirm it, but they did) did not match my CURP. We discovered why: if you don’t have a second last name, some government bureaucrats type an “X” in the field, and others an “N” for “null.” Those then get worked into your CURP! And my CURP has actually changed since I first came, because in my first passport, they separated the “De” from the “Vries,” and then I had to have it corrected, and then corrected on all my Mexican stuff. The RFC is basically a shorter version of your CURP with some different characters at the end, and … you know what, you’re just going to want to leave yourself some extra time to sort it out. Don’t wait until June 29, okay? That’s cutting it too close.
Step 2
Then the guy took my “biometric data” by taking my picture through a special program. I had to put my head up and to the side a few different times … in the future, there will be no confusion over who that saggy neck belongs to.
He told me he’d need to get word from those “above him” since there was confusion regarding my various ID numbers, even though he personally could verify my identity. (The program they use to verify identity and register your number is linear: it won’t let you go to the next step if there’s any kind of error on the previous one.) After saying it might be a few days and he’d call me, it magically came through — I was registered! Hooray!
Step 3
I then registered my child’s number, as children cannot register themselves — FYI, you can register up to 10 lines in your name. And that was it! The Mexican government now has the same data it already had, plus my phone number tied to it.
My career as a phone extortionist has ended before it even began.
Former President of Mexico Vicente Fox (left) and U.S. President George W. Bush had something in common. Both were prone to gaffes. (Public Domain)
In 2000, Mexicans did something they hadn’t done in 71 years: they voted the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) out of power. The man they chose to replace them was a former Coca-Cola executive who campaigned in cowboy boots — a charming quirk until he wore a patent-leather pair to a gala dinner in Madrid hosted by King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía — and had the unnerving habit of saying exactly what he was thinking. While that was the appeal, it was also, occasionally, the problem.
From the moment Vicente Fox settled into Los Pinos, Mexicans braced themselves for what would become a cherished national genre: the foxada. Also known as a foxismo, gazapo, desatino, resbalón or plain old metida de pata, these were the gaffes, blunders and baffling musings that punctuated six years of an otherwise genuinely historic presidency.
When Vicente Fox was elected president for the PAN party in 2000, it marked the end of 71 uninterrupted years of PRI rule in Mexico. (Public Domain)
Fox had delivered Mexico its first democratic transition in decades. But within what seemed like minutes, the gaffes began.
Fox and Borges
While speaking at an international congress on the Spanish language in Valladolid, Fox rattled off a list of literary greats. “From Miguel Cervantes to Octavio Paz, from Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz to Gabriela Mistral, from Simón Bolívar to José Luis Borgues” sounds good in theory — except the Argentine writer who penned classics like “Ficciones” and “El Aleph” was named Jorge Luis Borges. Perhaps thankfully, Borges had already died in Geneva in 1986.
Lesser gaffes have been forgotten — but Fox wasn’t done with Borges yet. When Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010, Fox took to Twitter to celebrate: “FELICIDADES MARIO, LA HICISTE! YA SON TRES BORGES, PAZ Y TU,” he wrote with the caps lock firmly on.
This time, he got the name right. But Borges never won the Nobel Prize.
‘Comes y te vas’
“Eat and go” isn’t the literal transcript of the embarrassing exchange between Fox and Fidel Castro, but it’s enough to sum it up. Before a 2002 United Nations conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Fox called Castro — the famous foe of then-President George W. Bush — on a private line. The relationship between the US and Cuba was a tense one, and Fox, intent on presenting Mexico as a balancing act between the two countries, wanted to avoid any interaction between the two leaders. His solution: ask Castro to attend, to speak (but not about Mexico-Cuba relations), join him for lunch and leave before Bush showed up.
Castro’s response — “and from there I obey your orders” — was a warning Fox didn’t heed. The Cuban leader did, indeed, attend the summit and depart abruptly before Bush’s arrival.
Fidel Castro followed Fox’s suggestion to the letter, before releasing a phone call between them to the press. (Vandrad/Wikimedia Commons)
In late December 2002, a group of masked, armed men linked to TV Azteca stormed the transmission facilities of independent station CNI–Canal 40 on Chiquihuite hill in Mexico City. They overpowered and threatened workers on site, seized control of the antenna, and began broadcasting Azteca’s signal on Canal 40’s frequency. The episode, known as “El Chiquihuitazo,” was widely condemned as a private, quasi-paramilitary assault on a media outlet and a blatant violation of the rule of law.
When a reporter asked President Fox whether he would intervene — guaranteeing the rule of law being a nominal part of his job — he responded in a few words that would, for many, define his presidency: “¿Y yo por qué?“
Loosely translated: “That’s not my problem.”
It was, of course, very much his problem. After ten days, the Fox administration brokered a deal — one that left TV Azteca in control of the signal. CNI eventually collapsed, leaving critics to argue that Fox’s resolution wasn’t a resolution at all, but rather a reward for the aggressor.
A washing machine with two legs
Women weren’t safe from Fox’s unfiltered commentary. In February 2006, during a visit to Sinaloa, the president boasted that roughly 75% of Mexican households owned a washing machine — then clarified, helpfully, that he meant “not one with two legs, but a metallic one.”
Fox infuriated women in Mexico when he referred to them as washing machines with “two legs.” (Bosch Home Appliances)
The joke landed exactly as well as one might expect. In the Chamber of Deputies, PRI and PRD members of the Comisión de Equidad y Género called the comments vulgar, crude and misogynistic, and demanded a formal apology.
Within days, Fox appeared on TV Azteca to walk it back — insisting there was “no offense” intended, but adding: “If anyone interpreted it that way, any woman watching me right now, I offer my most ample, most ample apologies, on the matter of the washing machines.” A non-apology apology, delivered with characteristic Fox flair.
It was not an isolated lapse in judgment. Seventeen years later, Fox took to social media to refer to Mariana Rodríguez — wife of Nuevo León governor Samuel García — as a dama de compañía, a phrase widely interpreted as likening her to an escort or sex worker. Movimiento Ciudadano filed a complaint for gender-based political violence, and within hours, Fox’s account was suspended.
Now I can say whatever I want
Fox couldn’t leave office without a parting foxada.
When Felipe Calderón was elected to the presidency in 2006, Fox told Spanish news agency EFE: “Now I speak freely; I say any nonsense, it doesn’t matter anymore. That’s it. After all, I’m leaving.”
He was true to his word.
Fox vs. AMLO: The Twitter years
As the first Morena party president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador upended Mexico’s status quo and ushered in a new era in Mexican politics — for better or worse. According to Fox, usually worse (Galo Cañas/Cuartoscuro)
Leaving office did nothing to quiet Vicente Fox. If anything, it freed him. With no protocol to observe and no advisors to ignore, Fox took to Twitter and pointed himself squarely at Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), a more recent president.
In 2018, as AMLO mounted his third presidential campaign, Fox mocked his ambitions and declared that “70% of Mexicans” supported PAN candidate Ricardo Anaya. When AMLO won by a landslide, Fox pivoted without missing a beat — posting that the new president was steering Mexico toward “authoritarianism” and signing off with “lástima por México” (“too bad for Mexico”). After an armed intrusion at his home, he held López Obrador “directly responsible for the security of myself, my family and my belongings.”
Fox has openly labeled AMLO as terco (stubborn), a machito (little macho man), a chachalacatabasqueña (a reference to a squawking bird from Tabasco) and a dictadorzuelo (little dictator), among other noteworthy barbs.
Where is Vicente Fox today?
Vicente Fox, who will turn 84 on July 2, has since returned to León, Guanajuato, to be closer to medical care.
Rancho San Cristóbal, his former home, is now Centro Fox: a presidential library and leadership foundation with horse shows, a children’s mini-farm and an event complex that includes La Velaria, a venue that can hold up to 10,000 people and has hosted, per the state tourism site, “grandes personalidades del mundo.”
It is, in other words, a fully operational monument to himself.
As for social media, Fox is active under his newest handle @VicenteFoxQue and hosting “El show de la verdad con Vicente Fox” on the YouTube channel “Líderes de la Verdad” — where he dispenses his opinions on current Mexican politics — Fox remains stubbornly, entertainingly present.
Bethany Platanella is a travel planner and lifestyle writer based in Mexico City. She lives for the dopamine hit that comes directly after booking a plane ticket, exploring local markets, practicing yoga and munching on fresh tortillas. Sign up to receive her Sunday Love Letters to your inbox, peruse her blog, or follow her on Instagram.
Cuauhtémoc Blanco had one of Mexico's greatest goals in the 1998 World Cup against South Korea. (Facebook)
Mexico has a proud World Cup history. As of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which begins next week, the country will have served as host a record three times, with its national men’s team competing in 18 different World Cup tournaments.
Along the way, there have been plenty of memorable moments, from victories to legendary goals. Here are 10 of our favorites, and the greatest moments in World Cup history for Mexico:
10 — Manuel Negrete’s wonder goal in 1986
Mexico VS Bulgaria Gol de tijera de Manuel Negrete Mexico 86
The quarterfinal game of the 1986 World Cup, with 114,000 fans crowded into the Estadio Azteca to watch Mexico play Bulgaria. Mexico would eventually lose the match, but it is a game remembered for one of the best goals ever seen in the history of the tournament. After a period of intense Mexican pressure, Javier Aguirre and Manuel Negrete exchange five passes during which the ball doesn’t touch the ground, and there is Negrete, executing a scissor-kick volley to score.
9 — Beating the world champions in 2018 and giving the fans a heart attack
Hirving Lozano vs Alemania (Mundial Rusia) 17/06/18
Germany went into the 2018 World Cup not only as the reigning champions but also as one of the most impressive winners of all time. They opened their defense against Mexico. In the 37th minute, a quick break ended with Hirving Lozano hitting the ball home for what would prove the winning Mexican goal. Now for the second part of the story.
Ten days later, Mexico lost its third game to Sweden, which left these two teams on six points, and both looking good for the next round. However, a thousand kilometers away in Kazan, the German game was still going on with the scores at 0-0. If the reigning champions could conjure up a late goal and beat South Korea, they might still eliminate Mexico. In the 92nd minute, there was indeed a goal, but it was Korea who scored. Two minutes later, the Koreans scored again, and Mexico’s qualification was secured!
8 — Chaos in the Azteca in 1970
México vs El Salvador “ Mundial México 70” (1970)
Mexico had drawn with the USSR in the opening game in the 1970 World Cup and now needed something against El Salvador. With half-time approaching, and the game still goalless, Mexican frustrations were building up. The ball went out of play, and El Salvador’s captain, Salvador Mariona, stood there expecting Mexico’s Mario Pérez to kick it to him for the throw-in. Instead, Pérez glanced at the referee and seemed to decide that Mexico had been awarded a free kick! With the El Salvador team jogging in the opposite direction, Mexico’s Aaron Padilla received the ball and was left with a free run towards the goal. The ball was crossed, Boja missed it, but Javier Valdivia slid in to score.
The El Salvador players were furious and rightly so. It was uncertain if referee Ali Hussein Kandil had actually given a free kick at all, or if he had been “conned” by Perez. He certainly hadn’t given the Salvadorian side a clear signal, and they had been totally caught out. For several minutes, El Salvador refused to restart the game. Referee Kandil kept placing the ball on the center circle, and the El Salvador players kept kicking it away. The referee decided to blow for halftime and, with tempers cooled during the break, the El Salvador side came out for the second half. But their heart no longer seemed to be in the game, and Mexico won 4-0.
7 — Introducing the Mexican ‘wave’ in 1986
La Ola del Mundial Mexico 86
“The Mexican Wave” is not actually a Mexican invention. As far as can be traced, the idea was dreamt up by Krazy George Henderson, who taught it to the crowd at a baseball game in the U.S. Young Mexican sports fans saw it on television and introduced it in a soccer game between Monterrey and Tigres. All this happened under the radar, and it was the carnival atmosphere in the Azteca Stadium in 1986 that brought the wave to world attention.
6 — The last 16 curse
MÉXICO 🇲🇽 La MALDICIÓN del 5to PARTIDO en los Mundiales (1994-2018) Memorias del Mundial
“The Curse of El Quinto Partido” … the 5th game. The expression refers to seven consecutive tournaments in which Mexico qualified for the knockout stages but couldn’t get beyond the Round of 16 for a place in the quarterfinals and a 5th game. The run started in 1994 with Mexico losing on penalties to Bulgaria. It continued in 1998 when they led Germany for much of the second half but still lost. The 2002 tournament brought a disappointing defeat to the U.S., followed by an extra-time defeat to Argentina in 2006.
A second defeat to Argentina four years later and a defeat to the Netherlands in 2014, once again having led for most of the second half, and finally a defeat to Brazil in 2018, continued the “curse.” In part, this pattern was due to Mexico regularly finishing runners-up in their group, giving them potentially a tougher game in the first round of the knockout stage.
5 — Did you see that in 1998!
Retro: ¡El día que Cuauhtémoc Blanco APANTALLÓ a Bélgica con un GOLAZO en Francia 1998 | TUDN
Cuauhtémoc Blanco was a very good player, enjoying a career that saw him represent Mexico 120 times and play nearly 600 club games. Yet, he is still best remembered for a little bit of trickery in a World Cup game against South Korea. Out on the left touchline, double-marked, he held the ball tightly between his ankles, jumped over two defenders, and was away. It wasn’t spontaneous — he had developed the trick with Club América — but it took the world by surprise. Viva Mexico!
4 — Guillermo Ochoa vs. Brazil in 2014
El DÍA que MEMO OCHOA FRENÓ a la PENTACAMPEONA 😱 Brasil 0-0 México - Fase de grupos 2014 🎤 TV AZTECA
In their second game of the 2014 tournament, Mexico faced mighty Brazil. This was perhaps not the best of Brazilian sides, but they were at home, and they had Neymar. It was Neymar in the 27th minute who rose to head the ball towards the Mexican goal. Powerful and well directed for the corner of the net, it seemed a goal for sure … but there was Guillermo Ochoa, stretching out and somehow getting his hand to the ball to guide it around the post. It was one of the greatest World Cup saves of all time, and the heroics didn’t stop there. Ochoa had the game of his life, on three further occasions blocking the ball with his knee and body to prevent Brazil from scoring from close range.
3 — ‘Cinco Copas’ in 1966
Goalkeeper Antonio Carbajal played in five World Cups for Mexico, the last in 1966. (Public Domain)
Mexico had done well in the 1966 World Cup, taking a point against France and giving England a tough time. With the final game to come, Mexico were still in with a chance of making the quarterfinals, but the odds were against them as they would have to beat Uruguay, and to do so by at least two goals. With young Ignacio Calderón having fumbled the ball to give England an easy goal in the previous game, Mexico recalled Antonio Carbajal. The 37-year-old veteran became the first player to appear in five World Cup tournaments, a record that would not be equalled for 32 years. He played well, and Mexico kept a clean sheet, a great way to end a unique World Cup career that stretched back to 1950.
2 — The Ignacio Trelles revolution
Mexico’s team in 1966 was coached by legendary Mexican player-coach Ignacio Trelles, who was on his third stint as Mexico’s World Cup coach. (Mexsport)
In three World Cups from 1950 to 1958, Mexico lost 5 out of 6 games and conceded 26 goals (an average of 3.25 a game). From 1962 to 1970, they conceded just 11 goals from 7 games (an average of only 1.1). The man who found a style that suited his players was Ignacio Trelles. In 1961, he brought Mexico to England for a game in the iconic Wembley Stadium. Mexico lost 0-8, showing they did not have the players for the new 4-2-4 style that was sweeping the world.
Trelles responded to the Wembley disaster by developing his own Mexican style. This involved three central defenders and two players covering the flanks, but willing to move forward with the ball — wing backs as we know them today. Mexico became a team that could soak up pressure and then quickly counterattack. The result was a gradual improvement that saw them score their first win in 1962, achieve two draws in England in 1966, and, under coach Raúl Cárdenas, who inherited the system, reach the knockout stages for the first time in 1970.
1 — Saving the World Cup in 1970
1970 WORLD CUP ALL GOALS
The 1966 World Cup had been cynical. South Americans protested at the injury-threatening tackles of the Europeans, Europeans players moaned about the South Americans’ time wasting and intimidating the referees. There was nothing beautiful about the game. Then came Mexico in 1970. Perhaps the altitude helped as it slowed the pace down and gave the edge to the skillful players, rather than those who relied on the physical side of the game. Perhaps it was the carnival atmosphere created by the Mexican fans, but starting with Peru and Brazil, the players started to have fun. By the semifinals, even the dull Italians were joining in, beating West Germany 4-3 in the “Game of the Century.” All this was watched live around the world in color. The World Cup has never looked back!
Bob Patemanlived in Mexico for six years. He is a librarian and teacher with a Master’s Degree in History.
While popular destinations like Playa del Carmen, seen here, welcome millions of international visitors every year, foreign visitors are few and far between in other areas of Mexico. (Rajiv Perera / Unsplash)
As you might expect, tourism is a very important part of the Mexican economy. The direct economic impact estimated by Mexico’s government (INEGI) is over 8% of the country’s GDP. Reports from the World Travel & Tourism Council estimate the combined direct and indirect economic impact at nearly 15% of GDP and suggest that up to 13% of Mexico’s workforce is supported by tourism. What’s even more interesting than the current impact is thinking about how much bigger it could be.
But even with those impressive numbers, the growth potential of tourism in Mexico is still massive. For those of you feeling that the country already has too many tourists, let me share some statistics for perspective. First, let’s look at the country’s population divided by the number of foreign tourist arrivals for several of the top tourist countries globally. Spain leads the way with almost two international tourists per resident, followed by France with 1.45, and the UK at 0.6. Mexico comes in at only 0.34. I am not suggesting that Mexico strive for “Spain-like” numbers (and the problems that have come with it), but we see that a doubling of the tourist numbers would still put Mexico nowhere near the ratios of Spain and France.
Next, let’s look at tourist density, measured as the number of international tourist arrivals per year per square mile of land. Spain again leads the pack with 481 tourists per square mile, with France at 476, the U.K. at 447, and Mexico … only 59! Said differently, France, Spain, and the U.K. are all receiving eight times more tourists per square mile than Mexico! Of course, parts of Mexico at times feel overrun with tourists. However, there are still dozens of spots throughout the country that are unknown to the vast majority of international tourists. I am often shocked to find stunningly beautiful places in Mexico with almost no tourists. Don’t get me wrong — part of the charm is precisely because it is not overrun with selfie-taking tourists. Still, there is clearly an opportunity to increase the economic impact for many of these places.
To help better understand what the Mexican government is doing to take advantage of this opportunity, I recently met with the country’s Minister of Tourism, Josefina Rodríguez Zamora. She has been in the role since October 2024, when she was chosen by the newly-elected President Sheinbaum. At only 36 years old, she is the youngest person to ever hold the office. Here are some highlights from our conversation:
1. Josefina is extremely passionate about Mexico’s potential for increased tourism. She is committed to getting the country to fifth place in international tourist arrivals by the end of Sheinbaum’s term.
Federal Tourism Minister Josefina Rodríguez Zamora at an April press conference in Acapulco. (Daniel Augusto / Cuartoscuro.com)
2. She is looking to increasingly diversify the tourist base to include more arrivals from other countries. Her team recently finished a tourism mission to China to attract more visitors from that country, had a massive presence at the International Tourism Fair in Spain, and has increasingly strengthened ties with European countries and Canada.
3. She is focused on making the Maya Train a success. Her team is working with local communities along the route to help them identify, create, and market the different tourism activities and options that are available.
4. She is (obviously) excited about Mexico co-hosting the World Cup. In addition to the direct economic impact on the three host cities (GDL, CDMX, MTY), she also sees opportunities for fans to get out and discover other parts of the country. To help facilitate this, the Minister of Tourism has even created a special app called “Mexico Invita.”
5. Her team is working hard to inspire tourists to go beyond the well-known tourist areas of Cancún, Los Cabos and Puerto Vallarta and increasingly discover more parts of the country. She mentioned the states of Guerrero (Acapulco, Ixtapa), Oaxaca (Oaxaca City, Huatulco, Puerto Escondido) and San Luis Potosí (SLP City, the Huasteca Potosina) as examples that are perfect examples of states that are increasingly accessible for more tourists.
Tourism, if done right, is a great way to improve the economic prospects of communities across the country. Far too often, the lack of economic opportunities has pushed residents of these communities to leave family and friends behind and move to larger cities in Mexico or leave the country entirely. Tourism investment and tourism inflows enable these communities not only to survive, but thrive in an evolving economy.
The team at Mexico News Daily has worked with Josefina and her team to create a new series of travel articles we are calling “Discover Mexico.” This will be a series of 14 articles and videos, published every two weeks, that will share a less well-traveled part of Mexico. Each article will have maps, article summaries, fun facts, travel tips and a video that will help you learn more about the destination, what to do there and how to get there. Check out the first one debuting Sunday, June 7, on Zacatecas. They can be found in the travel section on our homepage. Hopefully they inspire you to get out and explore some new parts of the country!
Travis Bembenek is the CEO ofMexico News Daily and has been living, working or playing in Mexico for nearly 30 years.
