first game of world cup Co-hosts Mexico will play South Africa in Group A on June 11 in Mexico City.
The Czech Republic and South Korea completed the group.
Most matches will be held in Mexico, with two games in Mexico City, two in Guadalajara, and one in Monterrey. The one game outside of Mexico will be the Czech Republic vs. South Africa on June 18 in Atlanta.
Two of the games against Mexico will be played in a recently renovated stadium. aztec stadiumand hosted the World Cup finals in 1970 and 1986.
Mexico
Mexico will be hosting the World Cup for the first time in 40 years and will be looking to bounce back from their group stage exit in Qatar four years ago. Prior to that, they lost in the round of 16 seven times in a row from 1994 to 2018.
Mexico has only reached the final eight in 1970 and 1986, when it hosted the tournament.
Much of the team’s hopes rest on 17-year-old Gilberto Mora, who last year became the youngest player to play for Mexico’s first team at the age of 16.
The team is led by veteran Javier Aguirre, who took over in 2024 for his third stint with the national team.
“I consider myself lucky,” former Mexican player Aguirre was quoted as saying by FIFA.com. “Every day I’m grateful to be here and do what I do, because I’m Mexican… and the best moment of my coaching career is just around the corner. As a player, there’s nothing like playing in your home World Cup.”
South Africa
South Africa returned to the World Cup for the first time since hosting it in 2010.
Although they achieved a 2-1 come-from-behind victory against France, they became the first host nation to be eliminated from the group stage.
South Africa’s only other appearances were in 1998 and 2002, when they also failed to advance to the finals.
The South African national team defeated African powerhouse Nigeria in the qualifying group to qualify for this year’s World Cup.
The team will be coached by Belgian Hugo Bruce, who will be in charge of Bafana Bafana from 2021. Most of the team is made up of players from local clubs.
South Korea
This will be South Korea’s 12th World Cup appearance, the most of any Asian country. Their best result was fourth place in a tournament co-hosted with Japan in 2002.
Since then, no Korean team has made it past the top 16. At the Qatar Games four years ago, Japan finished second behind Portugal in a group that included Uruguay and Ghana. In the last 16, they lost to Brazil 1-4.
The team was undefeated in the Asian qualifiers, but has performed poorly in recent World Cup preliminaries, losing 4-0 to Ivory Coast and 1-0 to Austria last month.
The team’s biggest star and captain is Son Heung-min, a former Tottenham attacker who currently plays for Los Angeles FC in Major League Soccer. Other notable players include Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Lee Kang-in and Bayern Munich defender Kim Min-jae.
Coach Hong Myung-bo has been in charge of the Korean national team since 2024, his second season. The former defender was the captain of the South Korean team that reached the semi-finals in 2002.
czech republic
The Czech Republic needed a penalty shootout victory over Denmark in the European playoffs to qualify for their first World Cup since 2006.
They entered the 2006 tournament as one of the highest-ranked teams, but failed to advance beyond the group stage, which included Italy, Ghana, and the United States.
Former captain Vladimir Dalida, 35, has agreed to come out of international retirement to help his team qualify for the World Cup. Dalida was absent from the Czech national team in 2021 after the team was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the European Championship.
The team’s coach is 74-year-old Miroslav Koubek, who replaced Ivan Hašek at the end of last year after losing 2-1 to the weak Faroe Islands in a World Cup qualifier.
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