The most fitting World Cup opening match imaginable

What can be the perfect opening match in a World Cup tournament marked by such ponderous build-up and insatiable greed in an era which has become synonymous with maximisation of attention-grabbing tactics to the active detriment of the quality of content?

The answer, as it turns out, is simple. The perfect opening match for the twenty-third edition of the tournament could only be a clickbait match. And in that regard, the group A clash between hosts Mexico and fourth-time qualifiers South Africa came through with flying colours.

The long-awaited opening ceremony, the first of three for the FIFA World Cup 2026, was a pleasing but forgettable piece of entertainment. The coordinated dance moves, executed primarily by (certainly) underpaid artists under the blistering midday sun of June, remain like a blur in my memory except for that one part where an army of people, dressed uniformly in white, were shaking about large mirrors.

In the most unconscientious World Cup ever, the mirrors could only reflect the lights and colours. Gianni Infantino, sitting in the VIP box, did not see himself staring back. He had, on the day before, the audacity to advise people to “just chill, relax!” when he was asked to comment about one of Africa’s most qualified referees facing outright denial of entry to the USA, where he was scheduled to officiate matches in this World Cup.

Anti-government protests, mainly led by teachers, had engulfed parts of Mexico City in the lead-up to this match. The possibility of a delay or intervention in the proceedings had also been floated. That did not happen.

Probably because FIFA itself remains matchless at engineering delays through the extravagant paraphernalia like whole squads encircling the centre-circle in a drawn-out pre-match ceremony, and at engineering interventions by unsurprisingly turning the necessary hydration-breaks into one additional advertisement slot in each half.

The match went underway as millions around the world were deflated because Ochoa and his curls could not make it into the XI. My deflation was furthered because the seventeen-year-old Gilberto Mora did not start. The dynamics of the match became quite clear from the get-go. There was only one team in the contest, and that was the host side. South Africa did not seem overawed by the occasion as much as unfit for it.

The football, as is quite expected after such an early afternoon kick-off, looked sluggish for the majority of the time. The only important thing about the game was its gravitas as the opening fixture, or so it seemed. By the time the final whistle rang, this game had staked a claim to be remembered for a long, long time.

If I told you that here was a match with three red cards, an eminently re-watchable defensive howler that will make one flinch, a goal where the shot passes though the legs of the goalkeeper who happens to be at the middle of an amusingly unnecessary mis-timed jump, another goal scored by a firm downward header of a striker who had by then already squandered two good chances through wayward finishing, you would think it was quite an entertaining game. But it was not. Vast periods of the game felt void. And that contradiction is exactly what makes it a fittingly clickbait opening game.

FIFA had already appealed to the nostalgia factor of a fixture that had already been played as an opening game sixteen years ago, a time long enough to be looked back on with rose-tinted glasses but not long enough to be forgotten. The Tshabalala goal was an iconic moment. The association with that, in itself, was a good drizzle of clickbait sauce. The goals in this game were fun, but there were only two of them in ninety long minutes.

The bar was only hit once. And the game remained entirely predictable from start to finish. South Africa failed to capitalise on promising chances and were consistently outplayed in both boxes. But there were three red cards! In the last five World Cups, this is the only game where multiple red cards have been shown. But that’s all it is: a statistical quirk, a detail that will make a highlight video of this game pop out in the YouTube feed, a classic clickbait.

It was not a game of crazy tackles, and all three red cards were for technical rather than violent reasons. In fact, much more entertaining than those red cards was the body language and utter unease in the face of the referee, Wilton Sampaio, when he had to articulate and verbalise his decision to send off Themba Zwane of South Africa after consulting VAR. But alas, that is far too humane, too relatable and real to be properly turned into clickbait.

Mora did come in as a sub. His entry was marked by one of the loudest cheers of the entire afternoon. The reverberations of the chant of his name gave way to febrile celebrations as Jimenez finally got his goal to put the game to bed.

Almost six years on from a life-threatening head injury that derailed his career at the top level, Jimenez, at 35, finally scored his first World Cup goal, and with that, he became the joint second-highest goalscorer for El Tri.

His celebration crowned what had been the most memorable stretch of a few minutes in the entire match. Amid the clickbait in a world of short-form videos, football still offers wonderful stories, even in the most unremarkable of games.

Read more – Edin Džeko: Bosnia’s Eternal Diamond

Also see – Mexico 2-0 South Africa: World Cup 2026 Kicks Off

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