Julián Quiñones scored in the ninth minute of the World Cup's opening match, and somewhere in an L.A. pub, a Mexican-American who swore they wouldn't get invested this time was high-fiving strangers and jumping up and down. Raúl Jiménez added a second in the 67th. Mexico won. The fever took hold. It always does.
Every four years, the same story. You know the tournament is corrupt. You know FIFA is extracting cash from host cities while leaving them to foot the bill. You know the politics surrounding this particular edition are uglier than most. And yet — ten toes down, fully in.
FIFA is taking the money, cities are taking the hit
Smith College economics professor Andrew Zimbalist, who has consulted for the UN and multiple sports organizations, is blunt about the finances: "I think it's fair to say that none of the cities will benefit economically because they don't get the revenue, but they get the costs, which can run well over $100 million." FIFA pockets the ticket revenue. Host cities get tourism hopes and infrastructure headaches.
The labor situation at SoFi Stadium added another layer. UNITE HERE Local 11 — a largely Latino workforce — negotiated a new contract that secured wages, data privacy protections, and crucially, the right to walk off the job without penalty if DHS or ICE officials show up at the venue. That's not a standard contract clause. That's a sign of how different this tournament feels from every previous one on U.S. soil.
Trump officials have claimed ICE won't raid World Cup events. Whether that holds is an open question that won't be answered until it either does or doesn't.
Reclaiming the sport anyway
Nico Aviña, owner of L.A. apparel shop Espacio 1839, put it plainly: "We need to reclaim that power. This is a people's sport and it belongs to us." That sentiment is doing a lot of work right now — cutting through FIFA's corporate machinery, the sportswashing accusations leveled at Mexico's government over disappeared persons, and the anxiety that has sat inside immigrant communities in the U.S. for the better part of the last year.
Wearing a Mexico jersey to a bar and feeling pride instead of fear is a small thing. In the current climate, it isn't.
Mexico as co-host carries genuine weight beyond group-stage seedings and tactical setups. For the children of immigrants watching El Tri play on home soil — well, technically their home soil — this isn't just a football tournament. That emotional charge is real, and it translates directly into the stadium atmosphere Mexico will carry as a co-host advantage throughout the group stage.
Whether El Tri can actually do anything with that advantage is a different conversation. But for now, Quiñones scored in the ninth minute, Jiménez made it two, and the pub erupted. The World Cup has its hooks in again.
