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One of the co-hosts of the 2026 World Cup, Mexico opened the tournament with a dramatic 2-0 win over South Africa on Wednesday night.
The match was a repeat of the opening game of the 2010 edition, which ended 1-1.
However, this time around, the Mexicans took control of the match from the blast of the referee’s whistle.
And they were rewarded with the first goal within 10 minutes of play.
Julián Quiñones opened the scoring in the 9th minute, and Raúl Jiménez doubled the lead in the 67th minute.
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The goals secured the victory for the co-hosts against a South African side that finished with nine men after two red cards.
Mexico also saw Cesar Montes sent off in stoppage them, but took all three points.
Iran’s soccer federation has accused the United States of “vindictive behavior” after saying that visas were refused for “key managerial and administrative members” of its World Cup team.
The Iran Football Federation’s secretary-general, Hedayat Mombeini, and its vice president, Mehdi Mohammad Nabi, were among 14 backroom staff and officials without U.S. visas before games in Los Angeles and Seattle, according to Iranian state television.
It was unclear whether the federation’s president, Mehdi Taj, had been issued a visa.
Iran’s team set off from Turkey for its training base in Mexico on Saturday before three group matches in the United States later this month. Officials who have been denied visas were due to travel to Mexico while efforts continued to obtain them, Iranian news agency Tasnim reported.
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The team’s participation in the World Cup has been complicated by the Iran war. Problems with processing visas had earlier led Iran to move its training base from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, Mexico, which is on the border with California.
The decision to deny visas to some members of Iran’s entourage had “effectively denied the Iranian national team the opportunity for a level playing field and a competition free from discrimination,” according to a statement on the federation’s website. It added that the federation would pursue the matter through world soccer authority FIFA.
The Iranian Embassy in Ankara, meanwhile, responded to an earlier social media post from U.S. Ambassador Tom Barrack, in which he congratulated his embassy staff for processing the Iran team’s visas.
“You cannot whitewash conduct that violates FIFA regulations and breaches the United States’ host obligations merely by praising yourselves,” the Iranian post read. “This represents the worst possible form of politically biased interference in sport.”
A U.S. official confirmed to ABC News on Friday that all players on the Iranian team were approved for visas. The Associated Press reported that a U.S. official said visas had been issued for players, coaches, trainers and some support staff, while another official suggested that some applicants affiliated with the team had been rejected for requesting visas “under false pretenses.”
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the visas publicly.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that the Iranian delegation would be monitored closely for anyone with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“We have no problem with the athletes, as we stated earlier, or their support staff,” Rubio said during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing. “But what we’re not going to allow is for them to embed in their delegation a bunch of people that we know have nothing to do with athletics and have ties to the IRGC or things of that nature.
“So we were going to watch that very closely, and we’ll continue to watch that very closely.”
