God Of football

Chapter 1015: 6th World Cup!

The stretcher came on a moment later as the Azteca applauded him off, which was the right thing.

Then the fourth board went up, and a number came up that made several people in the dining room sit up.

"It really is him," Nico started.

"Ochoa," Pedri said.

It was.

Guillermo Ochoa came off the bench in the thirty-first minute of the opening game of the 2026 World Cup, forty years old, pulling his gloves on as he jogged toward the goal, and the Azteca received him the way the Azteca receives its own, like a church receiving someone who had been away a long time and was finally home.

Lamine leaned forward.

"How many World Cups is that for him?"

"Six," Carvajal said.

The table sat with that for a moment.

"He was playing World Cups," Cubarsí said slowly, doing the arithmetic, "before I was born."

"Before I was born," Lamine said.

"Before Izan was born," Pedri added, glancing down the table.

Izan, who had been watching the whole thing with his chin in his hand, nodded once.

"That is," Fermín paused, "actually ridiculous."

"Six World Cups," Nico said again, shaking his head.

On screen, Ochoa was in his goal now, bouncing on his heels, talking to his defenders with a sense of ease only a player with his experience could manage.

The Azteca was singing his name, and Mexico’s shape immediately looked more settled, as though the team had taken a breath it didn’t know it needed.

And then they started playing.

Within ten minutes of Ochoa coming on, Mexico won the ball back in midfield, played it quickly through the lines, and Raúl Jiménez, thirty-four years old, from Fulham and still running, took it in his stride twenty yards out, held off a challenge, and finished low into the corner.

And the Azteca detonated.

In the dining room, a spontaneous and slightly embarrassed round of applause broke out.

"That’s a proper goal," Olmo said as a round of looks went around for all those whose predictions had already failed.

South Africa kept at it in the second half, trying to find a way through, but Mexico were compact, and Ochoa behind them was Ochoa, which meant that the few chances South Africa created were dealt with in the calm and slightly theatrical way Ochoa had always dealt with things.

The time slipped by slowly or quickly, depending on which side you were on.

The game was still tight, and Mexico knew they had to consolidate their lead.

In the eighty-fifth minute, they broke from a South Africa corner, three against two, and unlike South Africa’s effort earlier in the game, this goal was certain even before it touched the back of the net to make it two-nil.

The dining room acknowledged it, and the Spanish players began, stretching, checking phones, the natural loosening of a group whose collective attention was starting to drift now that the result was looking settled.

Lamine looked at Izan.

"How did you know?"

Izan smiled slightly but didn’t say anything else, other than to repeat his prediction.

"Two nil."

"Alright, since you’re some kind of prophet—" Lamine started.

"Spain’s first game," Pedri said, pointing at Lamine.

"He’s going to ask you about Spain’s first game."

"I was going to ask," Lamine said, without apology, "what the score of Spain’s first game is going to be, so I can let my friends know in advance."

"Absolutely not," Carvajal said immediately.

"I’m just—"

"Lamine."

On screen, the fourth official had gone up with the board and showed four minutes of stoppage time.

A few of the players got up to take their plates back.

The game was as good as done, but then Izan, unprompted, said: "Actually — I want to change my prediction."

Several people looked at him, wondering what had inflected such change.

"South Africa might score," he said.

Pedri stared at him before looking at the screen and then back at Izan once more.

"The game is in the ninety-first minute."

"I know."

"We’re three minutes from full time."

"I know."

Nobody said anything for a moment.

Then Olmo said, "Okay," in the tone of a man who had decided to simply accept the world as it came to him.

The game trickled through its stoppage time.

Ninety-one.

Ninety-two.

And in the ninety-third minute, South Africa won a free kick on the edge of the box, which was something.

The Spanish players who had returned their plates were now coming back.

The free kick was half-cleared to the edge of the box after it was taken, but then it fell to a South African midfielder who hit it first time from the edge of the box.

The Mexican players threw themselves in the way, but the ball went through them, clipped Ochoa’s gloves, and rolled agonisingly, comedically and perfectly over the line.

Two to one.

The Azteca stood in stunned silence for precisely two seconds while the South African crowd jumped to their feet, finally with a reason to celebrate.

In the dining room, nobody said anything for a moment.

Then Lamine turned to Izan very slowly.

"What," he said, "is Spain’s score going to be against Cape Verde?"

Before Izan could open his mouth, Carvajal was already on his feet.

"Luis!" he shouted toward the corridor. "Luis, come in here — Lamine’s trying to gamble on our games!"

"I’m not gambling, I’m asking—"

"He’s asking Izan for the score so he can tell his friends to stake money on it—"

"That is a completely different thing—"

"Luis!"

Lamine looked around the table with the expression of a man who felt genuinely misunderstood by everyone in his life.

While on the screen, the final whistle sounded.

Mexico two, South Africa one.

"Well, that’s it then. Mexico have hosted and won the opening game against South Africa and we truly hope both teams give us more to excited about, in their respective games in the next round" came the commentary from the screen, while the attention of the players also began to wane.

It was just 4 days now, until their own fixtures and even though most were nervous, the excitement overshadowed that!