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FIFA World Cup 2026 scheduleWill the Football World Cup's opening game curse strike Mexico?
Riccardo Ball • June 9th, 2026 3:59 pm
The famous Estadio Azteca (Aztec Stadium) in Mexico City | Photo: Andrew Cornaga/Photosport
The Football World Cup kicks off 7am this Friday (NZST) with co-hosts Mexico playing South Africa at the Azteca Stadium.
The Azteca is Mexico’s national stadium, much like Wembley is to England, and their record there is impressive winning roughly 80 per cent of matches.
The last time Mexico lost a competitive match there was in 2013, a 2-1 loss to Honduras in CONCACAF qualifying. The time before that? 2001 to Costa Rica, also in a qualifying match.
Considering all that, you’d be forgiven for thinking that a win for El Tri against Bafana Bafana is a lay down misère, but history would suggest otherwise.
From 1974 through to 2002, the World Cups opened with the defending champion playing the opening match and across those eight matches the results often didn’t go the way of the favourites.
Brazil versus Yugoslavia, and West Germany against Poland opened the '74 and '78 tournaments and both ended in nil-all draws - but it’s the Argentinians that have fared worst in the opening matches.
The 1978 champions lost 1-nil to Belgium in the opener at Spain '82, while more of a shock was Cameroon tipping them over by the same score in the opener at Italia '90.
It wasn’t until Germany beat Bolivia 1-nil at Chicago’s Soldier Field at USA '94 that a defending champion got up in the opening match of a World Cup.
Brazil followed that with a win against Scotland at France '98, but in 2002 the biggest shock of them all occurred.
French supporters at the 1998 World Cup | Photo: Anthony Bibard/Panoramic
Zinedine Zidane’s France - European and World Champions with names like Thierry Henry, Patrick Viera and Lillian Thuram - were beaten 1-nil by Senegal, and even more shocking failed to qualify out of the group stage losing to Denmark and drawing with Uruguay.
After the French surrender in 2002, football's governing body changed the opening match to include the host nation. The draw here was key to keeping the local fans engaged in the tournament for as long as possible and that meant regardless of their world ranking the host nation (or nations) would be seeded for the draw.
Three host nations have won the opening game of the World Cup since then with the Germans beating Costa Rica 4-2 in 2006, Russia thrashed Saudi Arabia 5-nil in 2018 and Brazil needed the help of a couple of 50/50 calls to beat Croatia 3-1 in 2014.
Last time out though Qatar were beaten 2-nil by Ecuador and became just the second host nation to fail to progress from the group stage. The first? South Africa in 2010 where they opened the tournament with a 1-all draw with guess who? Mexico.
Mexico - $1.42
Draw - $4.25
South Africa - $8
Will the curse strike again? Double chance market for South Africa or the Draw - $2.75
All betcha odds are current at the time of publishing - R18, please gamble responsibly.
