Global football show kicks off on June 11

The most anticipated tournament of the summer – the FIFA World Cup 2026 – kicks off today with the opening match between Mexico and South Africa. The World Cup takes place as of June 11 till July 19 and, for the first time in history, will be hosted in three different countries – the USA, Mexico and Canada – featuring 48 national teams and a total of 104 matches.

The FIFA World Cup 2026 starts today at 22:00. The match will be played between Mexico and South Africa (Group A) at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, which has a capacity of 83,000 seats. At 20:30, the opening ceremony of the tournament will take place, featuring performances by more artists, including Shakira and Burna Boy – with the official anthem “Dai Dai” – Alejandro Fernandez, Belinda, Danny Ocean, J Balvin, Tayla and others. The ceremony will also include cultural, artistic and sporting elements.

This is the biggest World Cup so far, being the first edition to feature 48 qualified countries, with 104 matches and 16 host cities. The tournament will be the largest and most inclusive FIFA World Cup in history. The 2026 edition is expected to attract over 6.5 million fans to the stadiums in Canada, Mexico and the United States, truly uniting the continent and the entire world through football, according to FIFA.com.

A new concept will be introduced at the start of each match: a “fan-centered pre-match ceremony” at every game of the tournament. This replaces the traditional team walkouts with a presentation that brings all players together in the center circle for announcements and national anthems — a change meant to increase fans’ engagement and create a more unified moment on the pitch. No matter where they watch the event from, supporters will each have a distinct and captivating perspective, with oversized banners of the national flags and on-pitch elements carefully positioned, in order to involve the audience in an authentic and meaningful way.

Contacted by MOLDPRES, sports analyst and former FC Agro player Veaceslav Pîslari said that expectations were, as usual, focused on the favorite teams:

“It’s a new format; for football fans who know the game, this is a large number of teams, and in the first stage, many enthusiasts will be more skeptical, because there are many teams with unknowns. We’ll see how such a format will be received by fans, because opinions are divided. We have the teams that traditionally carry the weight of expectations among the favorites, and we have the European teams that will certainly include Spain and France. Traditionally, Germany is quite strong at World Cups, and since the tournament is taking place in the Americas, we’ll see what the South American teams will say: Brazil and Argentina.”

Pîslari also commented on Moldova’s failure to qualify and said that the country had a future in world football thanks to the children from the Diaspora who play in European leagues:

“Our team is a small team, we don’t have the right conditions, but we were quite close to reaching the playoff matches, if the stars had aligned in the Nations League, and we hope that this new format will allow smaller teams, in future qualifying cycles, to have a chance to reach that kind of global stage. Generally speaking, we have never been a global football power, but we hope that, thanks to the many Diaspora children, whose parents have gone abroad, things could change over time, and then the national team could look different, with better chances. We have many children who have grown up in Italy, Germany, Spain and they come with a different mentality and a different level of preparation, because the domestic leagues there are much stronger, from a sporting point of view.”

The FIFA World Cup 2026 is the 23rd edition of the tournament and will be broadcast live on We Sport and Jurnal TV. The 2022 edition, held in Qatar, was won by Argentina, who defeated France 4–2 on penalties.

Author: Bianca Gheorghita