World Cup live updates: Mexico rolls to a 3-0 win over Czechia

Mexico 3, Czechia 0, final

Mexico’s party continues as Memo Ochoa’s booming goal kick that helped El Tri mount a formidable attack on goal. After a pass and deflection, Roberto Alvarado crossed the ball to Alvaro Fidalgo for another goal in the fourth minute of stoppage time.

The teams ran out the clock and the Azteca Stadium cheered.

Mexico 2, Czechia 0, 85th minute

Czechia’s Tomas Soucek appeared to injure his knee in the 84th minute. A stretcher was brought out, but Soucek hobbled off instead.

Mexico 2, Czechia 0, 78th minute

In the 78th minute, Azteca Stadium roared as Guillermo “Memo” Ochoa substituted in and officially played in his sixth World Cup. The crowd of 80,000+ fans delivered a standing ovation.

Mexico 2, Czechia 0, 62nd minute

If Mateo Chávez delivered a precision goal, the next score from Mexico was more the product of determination.

Jorge Sánchez’s was tackled by the Czechia goalkeeper and got one more touch on the ball in the penalty area that was deflected and rolled toward Julián Quiñones, who scored down the middle.

Mexico 1, Czechia 0, 55th minute

After struggling to show a deft touch in the final third, Mateo Chávez finally delivered precision and an elusive goal.

Luis Romo set up the goal by shaking off three defenders at midfield and pushing forward, passing to Chávez, who beat Czechia’s Michal Sadílek just past the midfield circle and then beat the Czechia goalkeeper with a shot from the right side of the box to the left side of goal.

Estadio Azteca erupted and Chávez’s teammates celebrated the 22-year-old’s first career goal for the national team.

Mexico 0, Czechia 0, 47th minute

The second half has kicked off at Azteca Stadium.

Czechia earned a quick inbound pass toward the box that was cleared by the Mexico goalkeeper. Two Czechia players collided on the play and referees briefly stopped action for medical assistance.

Mexico 0, Czechia 0, halftime

Julián Quiñones took a shot from about 30 yards way in the third minute of stoppage time, but it sailed over crossbar.

Mexico couldn’t generate another chance and the teams remained scoreless at halftime.

Some in the impatient Azteca Stadium crowd booed.

Mexico 0, Czechia 0, 39th minute

Mexico fans may have booed the hydration break, but El Tri seems to have benefitted from a quick chat. The team has controlled possession and threatened Czechia more since the break.

Israel Reyes, Gilberto Mora, Jorge Sanchez and Roberto Alvarado all took shots from the 37th through 39th minutes. Reyes’ bicycle kick attempt in the box was off target, Mora’s was blocked, Sanchez’s was on target and saved by the goalkeeper and Alvarado’s was off target.

Mexico 0, Czechia 0, 23rd minute

In the 10th minute, Mexico moved the ball into the box with a numbers advantage. Guillermo Martínez passed Luis Romo just outside the box. He had loads of space and hedged before passing back to Martínez in the penalty area. Martínez faced more pressure and hit the back post with a weak shot. The crowd at Azteca Stadium was disappointed.

In the 17th minute, the crowd sang “Mexico Lindo y Querido” to try to fire up the team. El Tri responded by making a run toward goal, but a pass from Romo to Gilberto Mora was just past Mora’s extended foot and rolled out of bounds.

The teams remained scoreless until the ref signaled for a hydration break in the 23rd minute. The crowd responded with boos at the stop in play.

Mexico 0, Czechia 0, 1st minute

Mexico’s final group stage match is under way at Azteca Stadium.

Coach Javier Aguirre opted start Raúl Rangel in goal instead of giving reserve Memo Ochoa a start and his sixth World Cup appearance.

Mexico has won its group and doesn’t need anything from this match other than to avoid injury, while Czechia needs a win to extend its World Cup run.

Fox has adopted a new split-screen approach to ads during the World Cup’s mandatory hydration breaks, after a stir among viewers over how it had been handling the pauses.

At the start of the tournament, the network aired full-screen ads during the three-minute breaks, cutting away from the field during the opening match between Mexico and South Africa. Soccer fans complained that they were missing on-field action, and the backlash mounted.

By the Mexico-South Korea match last week, Fox had changed course, running split-screen advertisements for the first time: two side-by-side panels, one keeping the camera on the stadium while the other played a commercial. The approach hasn’t been consistent, though. For Friday’s U.S.-Australia match, the network reverted to full-screen ads.

GUADALAJARA, México — While Mexico defeated South Korea at Guadalajara Stadium on Thursday in front of an elated crowd, protesters outside expressed a very different view of the World Cup’s impact on the city.

Community leaders, climate advocates and workers took to the streets to protest what they describe as “greenwashing through sports” by one of the official sponsors of the World Cup amid allegations of irregularities in its supply chain.

In many ways, the most ambitious World Cup in history — which kicked off Thursday in Mexico City — has inspired more angst than anticipation, more fear than fervor.

The competition, returning to North America for the first time in more than three decades, has expanded to 48 teams and 104 matches, to be played over 39 days in 16 cities in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. The complex planning was eight years in the making.

Yet even before the competition opened with Mexico facing South Africa at the iconic Estadio Azteca, it has been marred by a number of controversies that threaten to overshadow the soccer and cloud the tournament’s legacy.

The run-up to the World Cup in Los Angeles was marked by anxiety over how immigration enforcement, travel restrictions and anti-Trump backlash would affect the spirit and attendance of the games.

But on the streets of L.A. over the last week, something very different has happened.

Fans from a kaleidoscope of cultural backgrounds have come together to act out the kind of world — and city — they want to live in.

Brenda Jaimes pushed her way through an ecstatic crowd in downtown Santa Ana Thursday night, stopping in the middle of Fourth Street and calling attention to herself by shouting, “Me! Me!”

An hour earlier, Mexico beat South Korea 1-0 in the World Cup. Jaimes, a 22-year-old Santa Ana resident, was one of thousands of people who crowded into the neighborhood’s many bars and restaurants to watch the thrilling victory then spilled onto the streets to party.

Fans blew horns and spun noisemakers, chanting “México!” and “¡Sí se puede!” They brandished the Mexican flag seemingly everywhere: on banners, painted on cheeks, emblazoned on Jaimes’ tube top. They stood on the back of trucks and boogied.

Daiki Kaneko had only 24 hours before his World Cup journey took him to Dallas, where his home country’s squad will take on Sweden.

The Japanese soccer fan was making the most of it on Tuesday in Inglewood, snapping pictures of SoFi Stadium before taking in a different kind of monument: a space-age, two-story branch of the chicken chain Raising Cane’s, complete with a 308-square-foot screen, a mirrored dog sculpture and a massive halo hovering around the exterior.

For Kaneko, 25, who lives in the Tokyo suburbs, it was the perfect encapsulation of American grandeur.

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — World Cup tickets are expensive. Flights to North America are expensive. Hotel rooms in many places are expensive.

Then there’s the price of beer.

There are some fun — and yes, sometimes pricey — food and drink offerings at the venues playing host to the World Cup. A $75 caviar-topped tray of tater tots and a $40 empanada weighing in at 5 pounds for the daring or for sharing in Miami. Ribeye tacos for $8 in Guadalajara, Mexico. Something called a Twinkie cheeseburger that has nothing to do with dessert for $22 in Los Angeles.

Prices, in many cases, aren’t all that different from what U.S. fans would experience on NFL Sundays or college football Saturdays. But some international fans aren’t used to such pricing and are calling foul, especially over beer prices that can top $20.

GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Three and a half years after its biggest failure on the World Cup stage in half a century, the Mexican national team needed only two games to advance to the knockout round of this tournament as winner of Group A.

Mexico’s defense held off a spirited final push by South Korea, earning a 1-0 win on Thursday night at Guadalajara Stadium in front of a fiery, announced sold-out crowd of 45,522.

“It was a very tough game,” Mexico coach Javier Aguirre said.

GUADALAJARA, Jalisco — Before the World Cup, critics and fans of the Mexican national team debated whether Javier Aguirre’s third stint as head coach was the right decision. Two games later, the coach has led Mexico to the tournament’s knockout round.

Thursday’s 1-0 victory over South Korea at Guadalajara Stadium made the World Cup co-host the first in the tournament to advance while also clinching the top spot in Group A with one group play game remaining. After South Korea’s goalkeeper fumbled a ball, Luis Romo scored the goal that gave the Mexicans six points and pushed them to the top of the standings.

El Tri will close out the first round against Czechia (6 p.m.) at Azteca Stadium on Wednesday.

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Here’s a look at the World Cup group standings on Wednesday.