{"id":633807,"date":"2026-06-11T21:57:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T21:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/633807\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T21:57:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T21:57:12","slug":"mexico-2-0-south-africa-raul-jimenez-scores-in-world-cup-opener-as-three-players-sent-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/633807\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexico 2-0 South Africa: Raul Jimenez scores in World Cup opener as three players sent off"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">This is Mexico&#8217;s third experience of World Cup hosting, and they have got off to the perfect start, late red card notwithstanding.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Just as in 1970 and 1986, the famous Azteca in Mexico City staged the opening match of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Fans were treated to a colourful opening ceremony with Colombian singer Shakira among the performers, before the football began.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The carnival atmosphere continued as Mexico, ranked 14th in the world, instantly took control against a South Africa side who sit 46 places below them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After South Africa gifted the home side an early goal, there only looked to be one likely outcome, with Bafana Bafana&#8217;s task becoming much harder following Sithole&#8217;s red card.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jimenez suffered a life-threatening fractured skull injury when playing for Wolves against Arsenal in November 2020 and was in tears of joy as he celebrated scoring his first goal on the highest stage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At the age of 35, it was clear this game meant a lot to the striker who will return to Wolves for next season after ending his stint at Fulham.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He nearly scored after four minutes, only for a superb one-handed save from Williams to keep out a well-struck half-volley.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But he got his moment midway through the second half with a superb header, letting the emotions spill out as he celebrated with team-mates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is Mexico&#8217;s third experience of World Cup hosting, and they have got off to the perfect start,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-633807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}