Mexico, with its 1-0 win over South Korea becomes the first team to qualify for the Round of 32. Canada thrashes Qatar 6-0 earning them the title of biggest World Cup win by a CONCACAF team.
Mexico 1-0 South Korea
This was the deciding match for Group A, as Mexico now all but has first place secured. The most confusing part of the match was the lack of play by South Korea. They are one of the most disciplined and strategic teams in the tournament yet the only strategy they seemed to have was to keep possession.
They succeeded in this part, ending with 57% of possession, yet only had a measly two shots on goal. It felt like you were spending the entire game trying to figure out what South Korea was waiting for.
Then, once South Korea were down 1-0 — thanks to Luis Romo’s tap in off of a dropped ball by the Korean goalkeeper — the coach decided to take out their captain and best player Son Heung-min. This was a decision I disagreed with as he is too important to not have in this situation.
Now, South Korea has to win its next match and hope Mexico loses in order to have a chance at still ending the group in first place.
Canada 6-0 Qatar
Multiple newsworthy events took place in this match; most of them being positive. The main positive is that this is the biggest win in the tournament’s history by a CONCACAF team. The main player was striker Jonathan David who ended the match with a hat trick.
Qatar would end the match with two red cards with the second one resulting in Canadian midfielder Ismaël Koné being stretchered off in the 53rd minute with a horrific leg injury.
Shortly after, the tragedy, Canadian midfielder Nathan Saliba lifted the mood again by scoring a free kick and held up Koné’s jersey to celebrate their fourth goal.
As if to add salt to Qatar’s wound of already being down two men, they would concede an own goal, giving Canada its fifth goal.
On another note, a total of four red cards were issued across all 64 matches of the 2022 World Cup. There have only been 28 games played so far in the 2026 tournament and we have already seen six red cards.
As always, stay tuned to Futbolhijo.com for in-depth coverage of the biggest World Cup yet. Check back for my next article, where I will cover matches and news that occur throughout the tournament. You can also read my previous recap of the final day of Matchweek 1.
Cover Photo: Flages of the eight teams. NOTE: Image generated using the prompt “generate an image of the Mexican flag and the Canadian Flag,” by OpenAI, ChatGPT, 2026 (https://chatgpt.com/).
