WORLD CUP
2026

Mexico became the first North American nation to host the FIFA World Cup in 1970, staging a tournament that many football historians still call the greatest of all time. The Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, which had opened just four years earlier, hosted the final before a crowd of one hundred and seven thousand people, the largest audience ever to watch a World Cup final inside a single ground. Mexico's football story up to that point had been modest: they had qualified for several World Cups but never made it past the group stage. Hosting the 1970 tournament changed the nation's relationship with the sport forever. The matches were played in blazing afternoon heat to suit European television schedules, a controversial decision that made life extremely hard for the players but produced some of the most spectacular football ever seen. Brazil's squad that year, featuring Pele in his final World Cup, played attacking football so beautiful that coaches still study it half a century later. Mexico gave this magical tournament to the world, and the world never forgot.