Sport’s greatest show wins over fidgety fans

Gyasi Mer­rique

Se­nior Re­porter

gyasi.mer­[email protected]

Of­fi­cial at­ten­dance records say 80,824 spec­ta­tors packed the new­ly ren­o­vat­ed Es­ta­dio Azteca in Mex­i­co City, Mex­i­co, for yes­ter­day’s open­ing 2026 FI­FA World Cup match be­tween Mex­i­co and South Africa.

To the ju­bi­la­tion of a par­ti­san au­di­ence, pre­dom­i­nant­ly decked in the un­mis­tak­able green of ‘El Tri’, they wit­nessed a 2-0 win for Mex­i­co, which un­doubt­ed­ly went some way to­ward al­lay­ing some con­cerns fore­shad­ow­ing the tour­na­ment, while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly sig­nalling that no mat­ter what, the World Cup is un­der­way.

Though shroud­ed by an over­hang­ing mood of un­cer­tain­ty due to po­lit­i­cal and geopo­lit­i­cal un­der­tones, the ex­pand­ed 48-team tour­na­ment is off and run­ning. While many of the prob­lems cen­tre around the Unit­ed States and its re­la­tion­ship with many of the na­tions whose rep­re­sen­ta­tive teams and of­fi­cials have de­scend­ed on this part of the world – or at­tempt­ed to – Mex­i­co, not with­out its own do­mes­tic con­cerns, did won­ders to ease the ten­sions felt glob­al­ly be­fore yes­ter­day.

Some 4,150 kilo­me­tres away, at All Out Sports Bar & Gourmet Grill at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, some en­thu­si­as­tic fans agreed.

One of them, want­i­ng to be iden­ti­fied on­ly as Pablo, said, “I wasn’t look­ing for­ward to the World Cup for many rea­sons, but see­ing it now, I think my mind changed. I feel good to see peo­ple com­ing out and look­ing at the game, and I feel the ex­cite­ment go­ing from this game to the games to come. May the best team win. The World Cup, hon­est­ly, in my view, is to unite na­tions, and I be­lieve with the ism and schism go­ing on right now, I be­lieve peo­ple got a change of heart, a change of mind, and a change of per­cep­tion by see­ing all these peo­ple turn out to the sta­di­um and to the World Cup, as well as All Out here.”

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, who runs the All Out es­tab­lish­ment, said, “The whole world, es­pe­cial­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go, peo­ple are wait­ing to ex­hale. Sport is al­ways an av­enue that can cause many peo­ple to be able to re­lease their frus­tra­tion, to feel re­laxed and some­times to even uni­fy. We would have seen it the on­ly time we ever qual­i­fied for the World Cup, and hope­ful­ly this time peo­ple will get to en­joy it.”

“There will al­ways be good and bad, pros and cons, to every sin­gle ma­jor event. Yes, there are go­ing to be peo­ple speak­ing about the neg­a­tive as­pects, but this is the World Cup. It is go­ing to su­per­sede; it is go­ing to be big­ger than all of the con­cerns peo­ple are hav­ing.”

Not all opin­ions were as for­giv­ing, how­ev­er. Cheryl Ali said the ac­tions of sev­er­al high-pro­file fig­ures left a lot to be de­sired.

“I find Fi­fa should have pulled out of the Unit­ed States, but we all know what’s go­ing on with In­fan­ti­no and Trump. Fi­fa should have put the games in Cana­da and Mex­i­co, and I am sure that I am not the on­ly one who thinks so too. I am ex­cit­ed that the first game was held in Mex­i­co and not in the Unit­ed States.”

Mex­i­cans far from home feel proud

The deputy head of mis­sion at the Mex­i­can Em­bassy in Trinidad and To­ba­go, Flo­renti­no Cabr­era, and staffers from the con­sulate were part of the crowd. They beamed with pride from thou­sands of miles away as his­to­ry was be­ing made in their home­land.

Cabr­era said, “We are ex­cit­ed in Mex­i­co be­cause it’s the third time in Mex­i­co’s his­to­ry that we host the World Cup, and that means it’s a fi­es­ta in Mex­i­co be­cause every­body is hap­py.”

Ad­dress­ing Mex­i­co’s own con­cerns with gang vi­o­lence, which has led to height­ened se­cu­ri­ty, Cabr­era said, “Foot­ball brings peo­ple to­geth­er, re­gard­less of the po­lit­i­cal con­text. This is a fi­es­ta that we are go­ing to share with the peo­ple of the USA and Cana­da. There are three icon­ic cities of Mex­i­co that are host­ing match­es, and we ex­pect to re­ceive five mil­lion peo­ple dur­ing the days of the World Cup, and this is a mile­stone for Mex­i­co.”