Joy for Jiménez and Mexico as co-hosts make ideal start: World Cup Daily
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Guardian.
Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly. It's the World Cup 2026 daily pods on every matchday, the football, the politics and whether Barry will kill me for putting butter in the fridge. Today, the tears of Raul Jimenez, his first ever World Cup goal, confirming a very easy win for host Mexico. South Africa gifted them the first, had a man sent off, then had another red card. You couldn't hope for a nicer start. And quite hard to gauge if Mexico are good or South Africa... are not good. Czechia stuck it in the mixer to lead, but a great comeback from South Korea. We'll do a bit of England, look ahead to tomorrow's games, including the other hosts, the US and Canada. And then we'll discuss the Somalian referee refused entry, Iran's delayed and denied visas, the Iraqi striker held for questioning and the price of tickets for the tournament.
What did the panel think of Infantino's responses in his press conference yesterday? And then to the big stuff, me and Barry living together for six weeks. Who's done the cooking? Who's done the cleaning? And who's bought two packets of ham and gone to the pub? Everyone just chill, just relax. It's today's Guardian Football Weekly World Cup Daily.
On the panel today, Barry Glendening. Welcome. Hello, Matt.
What emotional moment did Raul Jimenez experience during the match?
I've thrown you under the bus already, but that's how it should be. Barney, Ronnie, welcome to LA. Hi, everyone. It's nice to be welcomed. Thank you. That's okay. Jeff Ruter, soccer correspondent for The Guardian, joins us. Hey, Jeff. Hey, Max. Debut on the pod. How are you feeling? Good. Good and ready. And over in Mexico, Jonathan Wilson.
How did South Africa's performance affect the game against Mexico?
Hey, Wilson. How are you doing? I'm very good, and you can tell from that that Wilson is tired. It's late in Mexico. How are you, Wilson?
It's not late. It's 20 past 10.
What protests and issues are affecting the World Cup in Mexico?
It's late in the UK, and I'm still in the UK time. I woke up at 3.50 this morning. I woke up at 3.20 yesterday morning.
Jet lag's not my friend. No. Well, the hearts of the nation who aren't being paid to go to a football tournament bleed for you, Wilson. But we'll start with you because you were at the Azteca for the opening game, Mexico 2, South Africa 0. What did you make of it?
What challenges did the panel discuss regarding the refereeing situation?
Great stadium. It really looks like the Azteca. I was worried that the renovation might change that, but it hasn't. So that was all great. Atmosphere was really good. I think there were some protests outside. I saw some footage a journalist had shot on their phone of that. It was nasty-ish without being too bad. I think it was a little bit smaller scale than it might have been. And then South Africa were terrible. It was really disappointing. I saw quite a lot of them two years ago at the Copa Nations. I saw the game when they went out to Cameroon this time around. The criticism of them was they were a bit too technical, a bit too flimsy. And then this game, it's just like they thought, oh, we're not going to do any of that stuff.
We're just going to sit in the back five. I can't find the last time we played a back five. We're going to be completely passive. We're not going to try and do anything we're good at. And we're just going to try and keep the margin of defeat down, which I guess they did. But it was a hugely unsatisfying performance for them, I thought.
Yeah. So as I said in the intro, it wasn't hard to gauge how good Mexico are. But the Raul Jimenez header is, I guess, the moment of that game. You know, his tears. It's a classic Jimenez goal. His first ever one in the World Cup. It was a really, that was a beautiful moment. Sort of a moment if you're waiting for a moment in this competition to go, OK, we like football and this is good.
Yeah, it was. And it was necessary because the sort of 10 minutes before that, there'd been not like huge amounts, but there'd been notable pockets of booing from Mexican fans. So even though they won 0-0 up against 10 men, they clearly felt they should have been, well, as Aguirre said, they should have been 4-0 up. Yeah, it was a slightly strange atmosphere. And so not just an emotional moment for him and a lovely moment for him, but actually I think quite a necessary moment in the game because Mexican fans were starting to get frustrated.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:14
2
What emotional moment did Raul Jimenez experience during the match?
1:14–1:30
3
How did South Africa's performance affect the game against Mexico?
1:30–1:43
4
What protests and issues are affecting the World Cup in Mexico?
1:43–2:04
5
What challenges did the panel discuss regarding the refereeing situation?
2:04–6:12
6
How is the atmosphere in Mexico during the World Cup?
6:12–29:54
7
How are ticket prices impacting fans at the World Cup?
29:54–45:33
Speakers
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