Booed on their way to World Cup knockouts, does Mexico love this national team?

Mexico became the first team to reach the World Cup's round of 32 with a 1-0 victory over South Korea (Carl Recine/Getty Images)

Mexico were being booed, booed furiously, but even that low rumble failed to drown out the whistles, hurled from the stands of the Estadio Akron with the ferocity and barb of spears. Tied goalless with South Korea at half-time, their team bore them impassively. This is not new.

An hour later, those same stands were dancing, players exhausted on the floor. Two games, two wins, two clean sheets. The first side in the knockout stages. A mariacheño song blasted out over the speakers — De Los Besos Que Te Di (Of the Kisses I Gave You) — and it was those adorations that now rained down.

“Of all the kisses I gave you, my love, which do you miss the most?” the yearning narrator asks. “The tender ones or the poisonous ones? The innocent ones or the unrestrained ones?”

For the first-half, they were poisonous and unrestrained — it was a song and night that encapsulated Mexico’s turbulent relationship with its national team.

It is forced upon you; at the airport, on billboards, from the lips of locals. “There is no city that is more Mexican than Guadalajara,” so the saying goes.

Jalisco, the state the city crowns, is the home of mariachi music, tequila, and Mexican rodeo; a cultural hub which spawned three of Mexico’s greatest 20th-century writers. Its football side, Chivas, proudly only selects Mexican players — four of whom were in the starting line-up on Thursday night.

It lived up to that billing on matchday as well, the roads out of Chapultepec towards Zapopan a sea of noise and fervour and green. Yet here, in the heart of Mexico, sides have to pump the vessels themselves; it is away from Mexico City that the nation’s true feelings are reflected.

Despite their success — statistically, Mexico’s best ever two opening World Cup games in their history — compare the mood in Guadalajara to the rapture which greeted the performances of fellow hosts United States and Canada. Equally as noisy — but filled with boos. And why? It goes to the country’s soul.

“Man has a longing for creation,” wrote Juan José Arreola, one of those great Guadalarajan novelists. “He is not content with merely living, but also needs to create.”

Against South Korea, Mexico’s only creation was purgatory. Manager Javier Aguirre has spoken of his desire “to fight, to hustle, to work hard” — but by dropping one creative force in Real Betis’ Álvaro Fidalgo, and opting not to pick another in 17-year-old starlet Gilberto Mora, he was left with a team which appeared to be working out their attacking plan on the fly.

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Eons passed as they launched long balls from the back. Civilisations rose and fell as they passed from side to side. For most of the first half, South Korea were content to let Mexico have the ball; it was safer than any counter-attack they may have given up had they seized possession.

“This was not the Mexico we know,” said supporters Ivan and Edson. “It was too slow. As long as they wear the shirt, they will be supported by us — but they have to fight, they have to play fast.”

To a large degree, the history of supporting Mexico is a history of frustration; seven successive round-of-16 defeats at the World Cup between 1994-2018 is testament to that. And perhaps that is why the imperative that this 2026 team faces is not just to win — but to entertain.

When a nation has been waiting for so long, eclipsed by neighbours, obsessed yet seized by impotence, a home World Cup feels preordained — that long-awaited day of fate where magical realism takes over.

“Sometimes you have to answer with your heart, your feelings,” replied another supporter, Carlos, when asked why he booed. “It’s the truth inside you that you’re voicing.”

He paused. “You know, we build up our stars. They live all over the world. And it’s tough, you know, because it’s our national sport. We build it up and then we crush our superstars. But when it comes to the World Cup, we’re all united.”

In the build-up to this match, the player that had been crushed was midfielder Luis Romo — recalled to the starting XI — crucified for fairly innocuous comments to TV Azteca in which he suggested that Mexico needed to focus on playing well, rather than solely focus on winning.

“It’s not like we don’t care, but we’re not 100 per cent like, ‘Ay, we have to win, we have to win!’” he said. “We have to live the game, we have to prepare ourselves well, and of course we want victory, but we can’t oblige ourselves or put pressure on ourselves to win.”