It’s the eve of the 2026 World Cup, to be held in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, from June 11th to July 19th. (See previous articles about the World Cup here , here , here , here , here and here).
The 2026 World Cup is to be the biggest World Cup yet, with 48 teams competing in 104 games.
What about the Mexican team? As I pointed out in my previous article, only 8 national teams have won the World Cup, and Mexico, like most countries, is not one of those 8. The farthest Team Mexico has gotten is reaching the Quarterfinals twice, in 1970 and 1986, which were both World Cups played in Mexico.
Every World Cup is a new one, so all the teams and their fans can be optimistic, at least at the beginning. Will a new team win the World Cup, or one of the 8 which has already won it? Brazil is the all-time champion, with 5 World Cup triumphs through the years.
The Mexican team has been selected, it has 26 players, including 3 goalies (the only players allowed to touch the ball with their hands). At any given time, a team can only have 11 players on the field (including one goalie).
Here is Team Mexico:
However the team does, the New York Post selected the Top Ten team jerseys, and the Mexico team placed #6. (The U.S. team placed #4). Here are the Mexico team jerseys, by Adidas:
Team Mexico’s coach is Javier Aguirre, called “El Vasco” (The Basque). The Basques are a tribe of people in northern Spain who traditionally spoke a non-Indo-European language.
Many Mexicans have Basque ancestry, but usually their Basque ancestors arrived to Mexico a long time ago. In the case of Javier Aguirre, however, his parents were Basques who migrated from Spain to Mexico, before Javier was born in Mexico City. Javier Aguirre named his three sons traditional Basque names: Iker, Ander, and Iñaki.
Source: Mexican National Soccer Team
In his younger days, Coach Aguirre played professional soccer in Mexico and on the Mexico national team in the 1986 World Cup.
In his coaching career, Aguirre coached professional soccer in Mexico, Spain and the United Arab Emirates.
As for national soccer teams, Aguirre has coached the teams of Japan and Egypt; and has coached the Mexican national soccer team twice before, during which times he coached Team Mexico in the 2002 and 2010 World Cups.
In the 2026 World Cup, Team Mexico is assigned to Group A, along with South Africa, South Korea and the Czech Republic. In the first phase of the World Cup, each of those 4 teams plays each of the other 3 teams. (See my previous article How Does the World Cup Get from 48 Teams to One Winning Team?)
The Mexico-South Africa game is the very first game of World Cup 2026, scheduled for June 11th in the historic Estadio Azteca/”Mexico City Stadium”.
On June 18th, Mexico is scheduled to play South Korea in Zapopan (Guadalajara metro), and then to play the Czech Republic on June 24th, back in Mexico City. After that, we can see which teams proceed to the next stage.
How will Team Mexico do in this World Cup? It’s almost time to find out.