All posts tagged: Azteca

Forget Maradona’s ghost, England’s real Azteca problem is Mexico’s defence

Forget Maradona’s ghost, England’s real Azteca problem is Mexico’s defence

Published by Webster

England’s landscape does not lack heterogeneity, except for mountains. On Sunday, it is precisely what they will have to climb if they are to reach the quarter-finals of the 2026 FIFA World Cup by beating Mexico. The first is literal. The Estadio Azteca sits 2,240 metres above sea level, though quality can compensate for it. The second is historical. In their last World Cup fixture at the Azteca, England lost 2-1 to Argentina, and on that occasion the mountain was Diego Armando Maradona, his 5’5″ frame, and the hand which made him a god. It might not induce the same dread among the current crop. The third is statistical. Mexico have never lost a World Cup match at the Azteca and own a remarkable 78.65 percent win rate at the stadium. Knockout football, though, has never cared much for probabilities. And then comes the steepest climb of them all: Mexico’s defence. The conversation around Javier Aguirre’s side has revolved around teenage sensation Gilberto Mora, Julián Quiñones’ flair and Raúl Jiménez’s renaissance. Yet Aguirre’s team has …

Guillermo Ochoa walked onto the Azteca pitch. The crowd of 80,000 erupted

Guillermo Ochoa walked onto the Azteca pitch. The crowd of 80,000 erupted

Published by Webster

Before Guillermo Ochoa walked on, Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca stadium asked for him. Mexico were 2-0 up against Czechia, the group already won, 12 minutes left. The chant started somewhere in the upper tier and spread. “Ochoa, Ochoa, Ochoa.” Over 80,000 voices, singing as one, pleading for one last look at the man with the curls and the headband — known across Mexico simply as Memo and after that one afternoon in Fortaleza in 2014, as San Memo. Coach Javier Aguirre had left him on the bench for the first 78 minutes. The crowd had been patient. Now they were not. Then the board went up. Number 13. What followed was louder than any of the three goals Mexico had scored that evening — louder than anything the Azteca had produced all night, a volcanic eruption that drowned out everything else in the stadium. Ochoa, already on the verge of tears, walked onto the pitch he had played on for Club America as a teenager. He could barely keep it together. Every time the ball …

Mexico beat South Africa 2-0: How the Azteca roared the FIFA World Cup to life | Football News

Mexico beat South Africa 2-0: How the Azteca roared the FIFA World Cup to life | Football News

Published by Webster

5 min readMexico CityUpdated: Jun 12, 2026 08:14 AM IST Sometime past noon in the bowels of Azteca, football took over the tournament, liberating the World Cup from the cynicism, disillusionment and anger that had stormed it in the build-up. By the time the game ended, Mexico shredding a tepid South Africa, the tiers dripping in sweat, tears of joy and beer, the sport had salvaged its centrality. The quality of the game was marginally modest, three red cards were brandished, a slew of fouls and discordant passes jarred, the game stuttering and stopping like a singer whose voice kept giving out, defences of both sides dotted with gaping cracks. But it would be remembered as a spectacle for the sheer atmosphere that Azteca whipped — an afternoon born just to enjoy, to take home as a lifetime’s memory, and not one to be preserved for its football. The hosts dominating the game from the first touch lent a raw, wild energy to proceedings. It took only five minutes for Raul Jimenez to register his …

FIFA World Cup 2026: At the Azteca Stadium, a spring, a serpent god, and 87,500 people on opening day | Football News

FIFA World Cup 2026: At the Azteca Stadium, a spring, a serpent god, and 87,500 people on opening day | Football News

Published by Webster

Two miles from the Azteca Stadium, in Coyoacan’s Cafe Cruco, Jose Alvarez, the cafe owner, throws in a trivia: “Do you know what is in Azteca’s tummy?” Then, he informs with a proud smile: “It’s water, a large spring that almost touches the other world.” But, with a raised eyebrow, he adds: “When there is a match, we face water shortage, because the stadium has a thousand restrooms!” He is not far wrong about the dimensions. The Azteca sits like a giant concrete sombrero, the traditional Mexican hat, in the Saint Ursula Coapa neighbourhood, over parts of a volcano that gushed its last fumes in the fourth century. The narrow roads with murals of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata with his bristling moustache are cordoned off, mainly to ease traffic for players, and partly to keep off the teachers demanding a 100 per cent pay rise and truck drivers protesting kidnappings on the highways. None of these tensions has spilled onto the arena, a canyon, a planet unto itself, the most sacred of footballing venues. The …