Opinion | Mexico’s World Cup Moment Is Pure, Fragile Magic

Mexico City is hosting only five games in this year’s World Cup, but you wouldn’t know it from walking the streets, which are awash in soccer paraphernalia. Everyone seems to be wearing a green Mexico jersey, thanks to corner vendors hawking unlicensed merch for as little as $15, much to the chagrin of FIFA, whose official shirts often cost upward of $100. On game days, fans swarm the city’s main avenues, turning paved roads into dance floors, spraying bucketloads of foam and hurling one another into the air.

El Tri, as Mexico’s team is known, has had a generational run this year, winning four games in a row without conceding a single goal — a streak that will be tested on Sunday night against England, where I’m originally from, in the last game at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca. The team’s triumphant performance has united millions of fans in jubilation at a tense political moment for Mexico, amid rising violence, political polarization and an anticartel pressure campaign on the part of the United States, one of the other World Cup hosts. Even cartel-related bloodshed has seen a lull during the tournament.

I’m enjoying the moment. I cover the draining issue of crime and violence here and, like everyone else, have welcomed the chance to obsessively follow the beautiful game for a few weeks. In my quarter-century living in Mexico City, I had never witnessed the level of euphoria that this tournament has unleashed.

The games themselves are packed, sky-high ticket prices notwithstanding, and free official fan fests are filled to the breaking point. In barrios across the city, people have crowded around televisions in street stalls to watch the action together and create their own sprawling fiestas, leaving FIFA again struggling to cash in on public viewings. The noise of loud watch parties echoes around apartment blocks. Drink deals by enterprising street vendors have beer and tequila shots going for just a couple of dollars, ignoring government efforts to limit alcohol consumption ahead of potentially riotous celebrations.

“I wanted to live this moment since I was little,” said Juan Carlos Sardineta, 36, a bass player heading into the heart of a million-strong shindig after Mexico’s victory over Ecuador on Tuesday. “We deserve this. Mexico deserves to have a good time.” Partygoers whacked piñatas hanging from traffic lights, strangers embraced and kissed, and a man danced with a dog resplendent in Team Mexico regalia. Stragglers nodded their heads to the beat until after dawn, as people started turning up for work.

“This is like an escape valve to let out the pressure,” said Arturo de la Rosa, 66, a retired I.T. specialist sitting on steps as a convoy of motorcyclists passed, honking their horns and revving their motors.

Mexico’s problems are not forgotten. The country is deeply scarred by years of staggering homicide rates and disappearances, many of them wrought by cartel gunmen. President Claudia Sheinbaum remains popular, but her governing party has faced a rash of corruption allegations in recent months implicating several high-profile public servants in cartel crime. President Trump’s threats to launch military strikes on Mexican soil have many people on edge — as does the news that his administration declined to renew the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, potentially rocking an already shaky economy.

The tournament has not been immune to tensions. In the run-up to the Cup, the city center was snarled with striking teachers demanding wage increases. Families of the disappeared have demonstrated outside games to try to bring their pain and struggle to the world’s attention, only to be met with police forces blocking their routes to the stadium.

Citizens have complained about splashy efforts to beautify the city ahead of the World Cup by painting public infrastructure with purple axolotls, the species of salamander native to Mexico City’s high mountain valley that’s gone globally viral. “We don’t have a problem with the World Cup in itself,” said Hector Flores, whose son was abducted in 2021 in Guadalajara, another host city. “What doesn’t seem right is spending for a sports event when there are so many crises in Mexico.”

And there is a dark side to the football fever, too. Several people have died in the raucous street parties, including at least three who were suffocated near Mexico’s Angel of Independence on Tuesday after the team’s win over Ecuador. I was there that night and could feel the crowd crushing and swelling. Supporters can also be overzealous; dozens of Mexico fans honked horns and beat drums outside the hotel where Ecuador’s players were staying on Monday night, trying to keep them awake before the game the next day.

But the scale of the euphoria overshadows the gloom, even if everyone knows it won’t last. “We needed something emotional, something to unite us,” said Yanira Córdoba, 48, who works on rural development projects, as a man strolled by with a huge speaker on his shoulder blasting the Mexican mariachi gem “Cielito Lindo.”

“It’s a cease-fire. People are enjoying themselves,” said Mr. de la Rosa. “After the World Cup, we have to see if we divide again or we stay unified.”

Ioan Grillo is a contributing Opinion writer who has covered gang violence and organized crime in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America for two decades.

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