The lightning came first. It streaked across a darkening Mexico City sky, delaying kick-off by an hour and turning the build-up into something theatrical, almost mythic. When the rain finally eased and the match began, Mexico exploded out of the gates as though the storm itself had charged them up.
Julian Quinones struck first, a blistering effort that gave the goalkeeper no chance. Raul Jimenez doubled the lead soon after. By half-time, Ecuador’s resistance was already broken, and a nation that has waited decades for this feeling let itself believe again.
By full time, the party had spread far beyond the stadium. In Mexico City, more than a million people poured into the streets, many converging on the Angel of Independence monument. Two thousand miles north, in Los Angeles — home to one of the largest Mexican populations outside Mexico – fireworks lit the sky over a downtown watch party thick with fans who could barely find words for what they’d seen.
“This is by far the best performance we have seen from the Mexican team in a long time. It is a great year to be Mexican and a great year to see the World Cup,” one fan told BBC World Service. “For them to even top the group was nowhere near the vicinity of thinking. This is happening right now.”
Another supporter tried to explain the shift in the team itself. “You’ve seen the energy of the players evolve through the tournament,” he said. “There are players now who were getting called out for making mistakes but are now playing amazing. It is great just to see this team and players like they are so connected.”
Four games into this World Cup, the numbers back up the feeling: four wins, eight goals scored, none conceded. A defence that has faced just six shots on target all tournament. And now, for the first time since 1986, a World Cup knockout win – the fifth game that has eluded every Mexico squad since their run of quarter-final exits stretching back to the tournaments they hosted in 1970 and 1986. In 2022, they didn’t even escape the group. This year already feels different.
Some of that difference wears the number 10 – Gilberto Mora, 17 years and 259 days old, now the second-youngest player ever to start a World Cup knockout match, trailing only Pele’s mark from 1958. Some of it wears more experience: Wolves striker Jimenez, a known quantity to English fans, and Quinones, the 29-year-old Al-Qadsiah forward whose opener against Ecuador took his tournament tally to three in four games.
And now, waiting at the other end of the bracket, sits England – provided they get past DR Congo in Wednesday’s last-32 tie. If they do, the reward is a trip to the Azteca itself, a stadium where Mexico have won 70 of 89 competitive matches, drawn 17, lost only two, and remain unbeaten across 10 World Cup fixtures. The quality of opposition hasn’t always been elite. The reputation of the place hardly needs it.
Even before a ball would be kicked in that hypothetical tie, Mexican fans were already savoring it. “England have the Ballon d’Or favourite Harry Kane leading that team,” one said. “You have players like Jude Bellingham, and it is scary, but with the momentum we have there is the chance to do the impossible.”
Former Australia and Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou, watching from the ITV studio, saw the same equation. “The whole nation is behind them – we’ve seen the scenes,” he said. “If it will be England going down to Mexico, it’s going to be like stepping into a different World Cup for them.”
But the night carried a darker undertow too. The Guardian reported that at least two people died amid the celebrations in Mexico City – a 19-year-old woman and a 44-year-old man, both from asphyxiation, according to the city’s health ministry. A third death, reported by local media, remained unconfirmed.
