{"id":49378,"date":"2026-06-12T07:16:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T01:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=49378"},"modified":"2026-06-12T07:16:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T01:31:29","slug":"mexico-beat-south-africa-in-fifa-world-cup-2026-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/mexico-beat-south-africa-in-fifa-world-cup-2026-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexico beat South Africa in FIFA World Cup 2026 opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p><strong>Agency, June 12:<\/strong> Co-hosts Mexico kicked off their FIFA World Cup 2026 campaign with a convincing 2-0 victory over South Africa in the tournament&#8217;s opening match on Thursday night.<\/p>\n<p>Playing in front of a packed crowd at Estadio Azteca, Mexico secured all three points thanks to goals from Juli\u00e1n Qui\u00f1ones and Ra\u00fal Jim\u00e9nez.<\/p>\n<p>Mexico made a dream start, taking the lead in the ninth minute when Qui\u00f1ones found the net after being set up by Erik Lira.<\/p>\n<p>South Africa&#8217;s task became even more difficult shortly after the restart as Sfefelo Sithole was shown a straight red card in the 49th minute, reducing his side to 10 men.<\/p>\n<p>The hosts doubled their advantage in the 67th minute when Jim\u00e9nez powered home a header from a cross delivered by Roberto Alvarado.<\/p>\n<p>The match grew increasingly heated in the closing stages. South Africa were reduced to nine players in the 84th minute after Themba Zwane received a red card for striking Alvarado in the face.<\/p>\n<p>Mexico also finished the match with 10 men after defender C\u00e9sar Montes was sent off during stoppage time for bringing down an opponent outside the penalty area and denying a promising goalscoring opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>Neither side managed to add to the scoreline in the remaining minutes, as Mexico sealed a 2-0 win to make a winning start to the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>The victory puts Mexico top of Group A with three points, while South Africa begin their World Cup campaign empty-handed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Agency, June 12: Co-hosts Mexico kicked off their FIFA World Cup 2026 campaign with a convincing 2-0 victory over South Africa in the tournament&#8217;s opening match on Thursday night. Playing in front of a packed crowd at Estadio Azteca, Mexico secured all three points thanks to goals from Juli\u00e1n Qui\u00f1ones and Ra\u00fal Jim\u00e9nez. Mexico made [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-main-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49378"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49380,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49378\/revisions\/49380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}