المكسيك تعبر جنوب أفريقيا

فاز منتخب المكسيك على نظيره الجنوب أفريقي بنتيجة 2-صفر في مباراة افتتاح كأس العالم لكرة القدم 2026 أمام 80 ألف مشجع بملعب «أزتيكا» في العاصمة مكسيكو.
وسجل مهاجم نادي القادسية السعودي خوليان كينيونيس الهدف الأول في الدقيقة التاسعة، وسدد بقوة بين ساقي الحارس رونوين وليامس مستغلا هفوة في دفاع جنوب أفريقيا.
وسجل المهاجم خيمينيز الهدف الثاني بضربة رأسية في الدقيقة 67 إثر تمريرة من ألفارو في الجهة اليمنى من خط الهجوم، وشهدت المباراة 3 بطاقات حمراء بواقع 2 لجنوب أفريقيا وواحدة للمكسيك. وأمام 80 ألف مشجع، أطلق الحكم البرازيلي ويلتون سامبايو صافرة البداية أمام ثمانين ألف متفرج.

Guadalajara, Mexico: Republic of Korea got their World Cup campaign off to a winning start by beating the Czech Republic 2-1 Thursday after finally converting some of the many chances they created.

Czech Republic's defender #07 Ladislav Krejci (C) celebrates with teammates scoring his team's first goal akupunkturabielsko.pl

Until the 80th-minute mark it seemed that the Czechs would punish the Koreans' wastefulness, but substitute Oh Hyeon-gyu scored the decisive goal in a Guadalajara stadium that was far from full.

Son Heung-min's Koreans had dominated the first half but were unable to find the net.

Korea's forward #07 Son Heung-min reacts to a missed chance

The former Tottenham star blasted one effort over the bar before making a driving run to his left and evading two Czech defenders only to shoot wide.

An entertaining second half began with the Czechs scoring against the run of play as Ladislav Krejci rose at the front post to power a header past Korean goalkeeper Kim Seung-gyu.

Korea's midfielder #08 Paik Seung-ho, South Korea's midfielder #10 Lee Jae-sung and Czech Republic's midfielder #15 Pavel Sulc fight for the ball

Hwang In-beom finally made the Korean pressure pay with a clever equalizer as he faked a shot and then caressed the ball over Czech 'keeper Matek Kovar on 67 minutes.

The Czechs had a goal disallowed before Hwang added to his goal with an assist, crossing from the right for Oh to slot home.

Korea's midfielder #06 Hwang In-beom celebrates scoring his team's first goal

When the final whistle sounded after a frantic end to the game, Son sank to the turf in joy.

Korea will face co-hosts Mexico, who beat South Africa 2-0 in the tournament's opening Group A game earlier Thursday, on June 18.

The Czechs play the South Africans in Atlanta on the same day.

Korea's forward #18 Oh Hyeon-gyu celebrates scoring his team's second goal next to teammate midfielder #25 Eom Ji-sung

Czech Republic's players react after losing the 2026 World Cup Group A football match

Paris, France: ChatGPT and Claude are betting on Spain. Le Chat from France's Mistral reckons Les Bleus will clinch it. And China's DeepSeek and Qwen have a fondness for Argentina.

The 2026 World Cup is the first with widely available generative AI chatbots, and fans and researchers alike are turning to the systems in a bid to predict the final victors.

This year's fad for non-human answers recalls Paul the Octopus, the cephalopod who divined winning teams by eating from food containers marked with their flags during the 2010 contest.

With OpenAI's ChatGPT released to the public only on November 30, 2022 -- in the midst of the last World Cup in Qatar -- few outside Silicon Valley had generative AI on their radar during Argentina's ascent to the title.

But institutions from banks to universities are today testing out generative AI systems' football foresight.

Bank of America analysts found that their Microsoft CoPilot chatbot favoured Spain equally with France, who were tipped by around 40 percent of fans.

Meanwhile tech news site Tom's Guide asked Google's Gemini, ChatGPT and Perplexity -- with Spain predicted as the winners each time, and France as the second pick in each case.

Another news site, Decrypt, received similar results from western chatbots like ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude -- but found that Chinese competitors DeepSeek and Qwen both tipped Argentina.

And researchers at Germany's Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) are running a more scientific analysis, publishing how accurate each AI model was in game-by-game predictions on a public website, LLM SoccerArena.

"The question of whether language models can reliably support real decision-making situations is critical," LMU management researcher Stefan Feuerriegel said in a statement.

"That's why we need benchmarks that don't only test abstract tasks, but how models deal with dynamic information, uncertainty and results that can be checked later" against the real outcome, he added.

The Munich researchers are testing both the AI's forecasts based on their internal knowledge, as well as their ability to integrate information found online about factors like injuries, squad selections, and even betting markets into their predictions.

Beyond the fun of weighing up the final outcome, AI is also supporting coaches, medical staff, referees and even ticket scammers, researchers from Australia's University of the Sunshine Coast wrote for online outlet The Conversation.

"We won't see an AI agent scoring a goal, or a robot coach calling the shots (at least not yet) but there is no doubt the winner of the tournament will have relied on AI along the way," they said.

DOHA: Argentina (1st, up 2), the reigning world champions, will begin their title defence as the world’s top-ranked side after the June Men’s World Ranking was released hours before the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off on Thursday.

Argentina reclaimed top spot following friendly wins over Iceland and Honduras, overtaking Spain (2nd, unchanged), who were held by Iraq before beating Peru, and France (3rd, down 2), who dropped after defeat to Côte d’Ivoire and victory over Northern Ireland.

Qatar, who lost their friendly against Ireland and played a goalless draw against El Salvador, slipped one place to 56th ahead of their opening Group B clash against Switzerland, who are ranked 19th.

Morocco (7th, up 1) climbed to their highest-ever ranking since 1993, overtaking the Netherlands (8th, down 1).

Mexico (14th, up 1), Uruguay (16th, up 1) and Iran (20th, up 1) all moved up, while Senegal (15th, down 1) and the United States (17th, down 1) slipped.

Hungary (39th, up 3), Chile (51st, up 3) and China PR (91st, up 3) were the biggest climbers, while Serbia (41st, down 4), Mali (55th, down 3) and Benin (93rd, down 3) saw the sharpest falls.

Mexico City: Mexico ignited their World Cup party with a dominant 2-0 victory over nine-man South Africa on Thursday as the biggest ever edition of the global footballing showpiece kicked off at the iconic Estadio Azteca.

Julian Quinones scored the opening goal of the tournament and veteran striker Raul Jimenez added a second as the co-hosts' bid for qualification from Group A got off to smooth start.

South Africa meanwhile never looked like spoiling the opening day fiesta, and finished with only nine men after Sphephelo Sithole and Themba Zwane were sent off.

The Mexican-colored red, green and white smoke from pre-game fireworks had barely dissipated before Quinones fired the hosts into the lead on nine minutes, drilling a low shot through the legs of South Africa’s goalkeeper and captain Ronwen Williams.

A deafening roar cascaded down from the stands of the Azteca, the footballing cathedral that became the only stadium to host games at three different World Cups.

South Africa coach Hugo Broos had warned his players to be ready for the intimidating atmosphere created by a capacity 80,824 crowd at the imposing concrete arena.

But South Africa’s players looked to have a bad case of stage fright as Mexico's fans greeted each completed pass with a raucous chorus of "Ole!" in the opening minutes.

Sithole seemed particularly affected, being caught in possession trying to play out of the back for Quinones' opening goal.

Sithole's miserable afternoon ended with a 49th minute dismissal after bundling over Mexico’s Brian Gutierrez when clean through on goal.

Mexico rammed home their advantage in the 67th minute, with a fine counter attack culminating in Roberto Alvarado crossing for Wolverhampton Wanderers forward Jimenez to nod home at the far post.

It got worse for South Africa in the 84th minute when Zwane was dismissed after a VAR review for flinging an arm into the face of Alvarado.

There was still time for late drama when Mexican defender Cesar Montes was shown a red card for a clumsy challenge on Khulisa Mudau on the edge of the penalty area.