The 2026 World Cup Finals get underway on Thursday and Suth Africa’s opening task comes against the co hosts Mexico.
This is a Group A clash and these two sides also have South Korea and the Czech Republic, who meet in the early hours of Friday morning for company. A reminder the top two in the group go through, there are 8 best third place finisher positions available and whichever team finished bottom of the quartet will be eliminated.
For the latest betting for this group and details of the squads click here.
Mexico
In terms of results Mexico’s prep for this tournament has gone well with draws against Portugal and Belgium followed by 3 straight wins in recent weeks over Ghana (2-0), Australia (1-0) and most recently Serbia (5-1).
Javier Aguirre is the coach of a squad which doesn’t have the box office names from the world’s top clubs. They can usually be relied upon to get out of their World Cup Finals group but progressing beyond the quarter finals has been a problem historically. Raul Jimenez, who was with Fulham last season, is expected to lead the line.
Mexico have been trading at a shade of odds on to finish top of Group A and 66/1 to win the tournament.
South Africa
Bafana’s preparation matches delivered pretty uninspiring draws with Nicaragua (0-0) and Jamaica (1-1). They came through qualifying at the main expense of Nigeria, topping the group to book an automatic ticket to the finals. Over Christmas and New Year Bafana were involved in the AFCON in Morocco. They made it out of their group with wins over Angola (2-1) and Zimbabwe (3-2) either side of a defeat to, Egypt (1-0). In the first knockout round they lost 2-1 to Cameroon.
Hugo Broos is in charge of the first Bafana squad to make the final since they hosted the tournament in 2010 when, despite performing with credit, they came up just short of what was required to get out of a tough group. The opening match of that tournament also saw Bafana come up against Mexico and it ended in 1-1 draw.
South Africa have been trading at 10/1 to finish top of Group A and 1000/1 to win the tournament. They are around 6/10 to be eliminated at this group stage and 9/2 to lose all 3 of their group matches.
The Betting:
Mexico are trading at around 9/20 to win the game with the draw priced at 7/2 and South Africa can be backed at around 7/1.
A game of 3 goals or more is priced at 11/10 and it’s 14/10 for both teams to score
Price Boost: Double Chance Draw/ South Africa win is now 2/1 with Sportingbet
The Verdict:
Other than the fact Mexico are a host nation I’m not sure they have a squad to be feared so although Bafana’s prep results hardly set the pulse racing I wouldn’t rule them out when it comes to taking something from the game.
I’m of the opinion there could be some “blue sky” in the price for a draw here.
Bets: Match result draw at 7/2 with Sportingbet
Note, odds are subject to change