With Matchday 2 of the 2026 World Cup kicking off this afternoon, Mark Lynch runs us through four key questions that will be answered over the next 24 hours of Group A football.
We are off and running. The 2026 Fifa World Cup is here and last week we saw an opening day that had goals, a bit of excitement (certainly in the second match) and drama. As we look ahead to matchday two in Group A with keen interest (and a little bit of envy from Irish eyes), its time to take a look and see what questions certain teams might need to answer as we head into the second round of fixtures.
As it stands:
Mexico- 3pts (Goal Difference +2) (Currently projected to play Spain in R32)
Korea Republic- 3pts (Goal Difference +1) (Currently projected to play Canada in R32)
Czechia- 0pts (Goal Difference -1) (Currently projected to play New Zealand in R32)
South Africa-0pts (Goal Difference -2)
It’s early days so it’s still very much all the play for. Here’s some key questions each of these teams need to answer.
Will Mexico be able to overcome Korea Republic outside of Mexico City?
Call me a traditionalist but while some of the stadiums in the U.S. might be state of the art and very impressive, for me one stadium has stood out as my favourite stadium so far – and that would have to be the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. It obviously has had some work done to modernise it, but its old school design combined with its past history as a stadium that has crowned some of the greats of the game in 1970 and 1986 makes it a true cathedral of World Football.
There was one overruling emotion for me after last Thursday night and it was one of regret that we won’t see our own Boys In Green on that hollowed turf but for the next game we won’t see the Mexican team on that hollowed turf either as they head to Guadalajara to take on a Korean Republic team who already played their first game there last week against Czechia. Its interesting that Mexico are essentially the visiting team for this one in that Korea have made Guadalajara their base camp for the tournament. So the traveling as such will all be done by Mexico. Might that have an impact on what might be a group decider? We shall see.
South Africa: Can they play as badly again?
It might just be because they played in the opening match but it’s difficult to remember a display as bad in the opening week of the tournament than the one South Africa gave last Thursday. Wayward passing, getting caught playing out of defence – Hugo Broos’ gameplan went up in smoke in about 10 mins last Thursday and they really struggled to show any coherency after that.
This week they go up against a Czech Republic team who won’t have to deal with altitude acclimatisation (more on that later) as they play in Atlanta. It’s a difficult game to call as you have one team who did not really get out of the starting blocks last week against another who will definitely have more regrets about the opening match. Those factors might just play a little bit more of an advantage to the South Africans. They just need to show a lot more than they did seven days ago.
Korea Republic: Does Son Heung-min start against Mexico?
There were few players greeted as warmly by the opposition in the tunnel than Son Heung-min was last Friday morning by his former Premier League opponents from Czechia and it was thoroughly deserved. You only need to look at the deterioration in Spurs form after he began to suffer injuries in his final season with the club and how their form deteriorated this season to realise how big a loss he’s been for the club. He had a decent game last Friday morning but none of his chances really caused too much trouble for the Czech Goalkeeper.
His replacement Oh Hyong-byu came on and scored the winner. He’s been in very good form for his club Beşiktaş ahead of the tournament. This leaves the Korea Republic manager with a nice dilemma on his hands – namely do the two players in question switch roles for the Mexico game with Son coming in late in the game against tired Mexican defenders that have been pulled from pillar to post by Oh. More likely than not things will stay the same but the games will be coming more frequently for Korea now so giving Oh a few more minutes while giving Son a bit of a breather ahead of challenges ahead that in all honesty look very attainable from a Korean point of view might be the order of the day.
Czechia: Were Czechia the artists of their own downfall last week?
It’s hard not to keep a close eye on the fortunes of Czechia this World Cup for obvious reasons. Its also really difficult not to take a little glee from seeing Miroslav Koubek perhaps costing his team valuable points last week. Not that all the blame lies squarely on him.
An interesting point of note was made by the American coverage of the game broadcast on RTE last Friday night and it involved the preparations for the game played at around 1,000-1,500 feet above sea level. While the Koreans not only based themselves in Guadalajara, they also played two pre World Cup matches in Salt Lake City Utah, a city based at a similar altitude.
On the other hand, Czechia decided to rock into town the day before the game from their sea level base in Texas which is believed to have been a pre-designated site by Fifa, where Ireland would also have been based had they qualified. The fact of the matter is it left little time for acclimatisation and for a while it looked like it worked OK as Czech reasonably held their own against their energetic opponents in the first half. Of course in the second they took the lead through their captain Krejci.
This is now the point where Koubeks decisions need to be questioned. Almost immediately after the goal they replaced their front three, including Sujic and Schick. Whether this decision was caused by fatigue brought on by altitude or a tactical switch, neither really looks good on the manager. That really was the turning point of the game and cost Czechia dearly? Can they recover against South Africa? Only time will tell.
Group A looks a group where everything should look a lot clearer by Friday morning so hopefully we see two good matches as it all unfolds.
