World Cup Kicks Off Across Three Nations as Mexico Routs South Africa in Record-Setting Opener

The largest World Cup in history opened Thursday, with the first 48-team tournament getting underway across the United States, Mexico and Canada and the host trio kicking off a month of soccer that organizers expect to draw the biggest audiences the sport has ever seen.

The opening match belonged to Mexico, which beat South Africa 2-0 before a deafening crowd at the storied Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. Julián Quiñones got the tournament's first goal just nine minutes in, and Raúl Jiménez doubled the lead in the second half to send the home fans into raptures. But the match also etched itself into the record books for the wrong reasons, producing three red cards — the most ever shown in a single World Cup game.

A day later, the group stage delivered its first major twist in Guadalajara, where South Korea came from behind to beat Czechia 2-1 at Estadio Akron. Wolverhampton Wanderers midfielder Ladislav Krejčí put the European side ahead, only for Hwang In-Beom and Oh Hyeon-Gyu to score in succession and flip the result, handing the Czechs an opening-day defeat.

The expanded format — up from 32 teams — has stretched the tournament across 16 host cities on the continent, from Vancouver and Seattle to Atlanta, Mexico City and Monterrey. The bigger field means more matches, more travel and, for several smaller footballing nations, a first-ever taste of the World Cup stage.

For the United States, co-hosting the event has become a logistical undertaking on the scale of multiple Super Bowls running simultaneously, with stadiums, security and transit systems tested by the influx of fans from dozens of countries. Mexico's Azteca, which has now staged World Cup openers across three different tournaments, became the first stadium to host matches in three separate editions of the competition.

With the group stage only just beginning, the early days served up exactly the mix the sport's governing body had hoped for: a raucous host-nation win, a giant-killing comeback and a record that will be cited for years. The knockout rounds and the new tournament's eventual champion are still weeks away, but the world's biggest sporting event has, at last, begun.