Mexico will open the 2026 World Cup against South Africa at Azteca Stadium on Thursday, bringing back the same pairing that started the 2010 tournament. It is a rare rematch for the opening game of football’s biggest event, and one that puts Mexico back at the centre of the sport’s most watched first whistle.
For readers searching this now, the reason is simple: the opening match is already set, and it carries a piece of World Cup history with it. South Africa and Mexico drew 1-1 in 2010, when Siphiwe Tshabalala put South Africa ahead before Rafael Márquez levelled in the 79th minute, and this week’s meeting repeats that curtain-raiser at the same famous stadium in Mexico City.
That kind of repeat has been almost unheard of. In the men’s tournament, there was one earlier opening fixture that came around again, and Mexico were involved in that story too. The first World Cup in Italy in 1934 did not have a single opener at all: all 16 teams started at the same time, at 4pm CET on 27 May. The last time the men’s tournament used simultaneous curtain-raisers was Chile in 1962.
Mexico’s place in these odd bits of history is not accidental. Brazil met Mexico three times in four tournaments between 1950 and 1962, beating them 4-0 in 1950, 5-0 in 1954 and 2-0 in 1962. The two countries were again in the same group when Brazil hosted the tournament in 2014, though Mexico then held Brazil to 0-0 after Brazil beat Croatia 3-1 in its first match.
The women’s tournament has its own clear pattern. Since the Women’s World Cup began in 1991, it has had only one opening game, and no opening fixture has been repeated so far. That makes the men’s 2026 opener at Azteca Stadium unusual even before the teams walk out, because it sits in a very short list of repeat first matches.
Elsewhere in the World Cup picture, Tommy Smith’s call-up for New Zealand adds a more personal footnote to the squad lists. He was playing for Braintree Town last season in the fifth-tier National League, a reminder of how far the tournament reaches beyond the usual major-league pathways.
There is still one piece of the opening-match answer that the record books do not settle cleanly from the available details: whether Mexico against South Africa is the first repeat opening match in men’s World Cup history. What is clear is that on Thursday, at Azteca Stadium, the same two teams that launched 2010 will again be handed the first stage of the tournament.
