It is hard to believe that the long, pompous, and at times cringeworthy World Cup draw ceremony in Washington has set a promising tone for the 2026 tournament. I hope to be proved wrong, but a tournament with 48 nations already looks bloated, and the addition of a Round of 32 means that the first 16 days will produce 108 hours of football to eliminate just 16 teams. It feels as if the real action will not start until the knockout stages at the end of the month.
At least with the draw completed, we know, more or less, who Mexico will face in the summer. Will they still be involved when the tournament starts to warm up with the knockout stages? Well, Mexico should qualify from Group A, particularly given their home advantage, yet there are reasons for concern. They face South Korea, South Africa and a yet-to-be-determined European nation, which will not be known until the European play-offs at the end of March.
Two rounds of sudden-death games, which could end in penalties, are difficult to predict, but Denmark is the favourite to secure the last place in the group. That should set alarm bells ringing. The Danes were unlucky not to qualify directly for the finals, and were seconds away from doing so when Scotland scored two late goals to snatch the game and take the one automatic place from their European qualifying group. This put the Danes into the play-offs, where they will join North Macedonia, Ireland and the Czech Republic. If it is Denmark that qualifies or, to a lesser extent, the Czech Republic, then World Cup Group A shapes up to be an evenly matched competition with little to choose between the four teams.
Expectations are mixed for Mexico’s national team
It will certainly test a Mexican team that their own fans have concerns about. This year started well enough for El Tri with coach Javier Aguirre guiding them to two regional trophies, the CONCACAF Nations League Finals and the CONCACAF Gold Cup. While neither tournament caused great ripples on the world stage, they did beat their fellow World Cup hosts: Canada in the Nations League, and the U.S. in the Gold Cup.
With countries wanting to familiarize themselves with the World Cup venues, September brought games against South Korea and Japan, both ending in respectable if unspectacular draws. However, the international weekends in October and November saw a series of poor results against South American opponents, the home crowd even booing Mexico off the pitch after a dull 0-0 draw with Uruguay. The feeling is that this is not a particularly strong Mexican team, and this time around lacks the strong European club players that often add a backbone of experience. Raúl Jiménez is still playing at Fulham, but is now thirty-four, and as his team slides down the Premier League table, there have been murmurs from the fans that the veteran can no longer influence a game. Santiago Gimenez plays for AC Milan and is noted for moments of brilliance and periods of inconstancy. At twenty-four, he needs to make the jump from ‘promising star’ to ‘established star’, and a home World Cup is just the arena to do that.
Previewing the South Africa match
It doesn’t help the Mexican cause that they will play South Africa first. This is probably the weakest of the four teams, and a draw would be disappointing for Mexico. A defeat, with harder teams still to come, would be a disaster. These two sides met in the opening game of the 2010 World Cup, a match which ended in a 1-1 draw and is still remembered for a stunning goal from South Africa’s Siphiwe Tshabalala. Next summer, the roles will be reversed, with Mexico the home side. This gives them the considerable advantage of playing at high altitude in front of 87,000 home fans.
The South African side will be largely made up of home-based players, and that might be a problem for them. At the top level, a few teams, including Mamelodi Sundowns, champions for the last eight seasons, are extremely well organized, and their players enjoy world-class facilities, coaching and care. However, down at the bottom half of the table, a trip to play Magesi F.C. or Marumo Gallants can feel like entering a soccer wilderness.
The league is also noted for arguments and disputes, and this touched the national team. Having easily beaten Lesotho, South Africa faced a protest over the inclusion of Tebo Mokoena, who picked up yellow cards against Benin in November 2023 and Zimbabwe in June 2024. He was banned for the next game, something the South African officials overlooked during the long intervening period. As a result, South Africa had three points deducted and went into the final round of games with qualification on a knife-edge. The South Africans won at home, and Benin, ahead of them going into that last day, lost to Nigeria, a combination of results that saved South Africa the embarrassment of elimination.
South Africa’s coach and top players
Unusually for an African team, the South Africans have stayed with one coach. Hugo Broos had a long career as a player in his native Belgium, including playing for his country in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. By the 1990s, he was the up-and-coming manager in Belgian soccer, having taken Club Brugge to two championships. The national team position at the time was securely in the hands of the legendary Paul van Himst, so Hugo took his trade to Anderlecht and, from 2008, worked overseas. After he led South Africa to a third-place finish at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, several sides had their eye on him, but South Africa retained his services to see them through to the 2026 World Cup.
The best-known South African player is captain and goalkeeper Ronwen Hayden Williams. An international since March 2014, he has won numerous African awards. The team will have several young players, and much will depend on whether the likes of Tylon Smith can step up to the occasion. Smith was voted Player of the Tournament at the 2025 Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations and plays for Queens Park Rangers in the second level of English football. South Africa has never lacked talent, but this World Cup might have come a little early for the next generation of stars.
Matching up with South Korea’s talented roster
For their second game, Mexico will relocate to Guadalajara, where they face South Korea. Unlike the South Africans, South Korea will have a core of players who will bring experience from the world’s top leagues. Lee Kang-in, an attacking midfielder or winger, is on the books of Paris Saint-Germain, and Kim Min-jae plays center back for Bayern Munich. The key player is captain Son Heung-min. A Premier League legend after ten seasons and 127 goals with Tottenham, he is now plying his trade in the U.S. with Los Angeles FC. Son is a fit and dedicated young man, but a player who depends so much on speed might struggle at 33. We wait and see. If Son Heung-min still has his magic, he will shine in what must surely be his last major tournament, and that should take Korea through to the final stages.
Denmark shapes up as the toughest test among potential European qualifiers
Mexico’s third game on June 25, 2026, will be against the European qualifiers. If that proves to be Denmark, then that will make a tough finish to the group. The Danes have several players who earn their wages at top European clubs but have yet to make their name there. Center forward Rasmus Højlund is a prime example. He showed so much promise that Manchester United signed him for £64 million. He played well in patches, but a striker has a clear task: he is there to score goals, and Højlund did not find the net with any regularity. As a result, this season has seen him loaned to Naples. Højlund has sometimes found it easier to score for Denmark than for his club, and a chance to play on the world stage might revive his career.
The Czech Republic has a solid team with a core of players from the German league. They finished second in their group, well behind Croatia, and suffered an embarrassing 1-2 defeat to the Faroe Islands. However, once the World Cup starts, teams tend to make their own form, and this would also be a tough game for Mexico. Ireland, with its collection of players mostly involved in the English Championship League, or North Macedonia, would be far easier opponents for Mexico.
So, an even group, with South Korea and Denmark (if they qualify), in the best form as we approach the run-up to the tournament. If Mexico wins the opener against South Africa and gets the fans behind them, they should go through. If they start badly and the fans turn against them, there might be problems.
What if Mexico advances beyond the group stage?
The next stage, like everything else in this competition, seems to have been over-managed, as FIFA tries to set up the big four — Spain, Argentina, France and England — for the semi-final positions. Winning Group A would mean Mexico facing a third-place team in the round of 32. Finishing as runners-up would pair them against the runners-up from Group B. That creates a lot of guesswork, particularly as one of the four sides in Group B is still unknown. However, a likely possibility could be facing Italy or Switzerland, something Mexico would want to avoid at that early stage. A third-place finish would not automatically guarantee a place in the knockout stage, but teams qualifying through a third-place spot would face a group winner. All we can do now is wait for the big kick-off!
Bob Pateman is a Mexico-based historian, librarian and a life-term hasher. He is editor of On On Magazine, the international history magazine of hashing.
