{"id":19379,"date":"2026-06-19T12:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T18:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/miranda-partners.com\/news-and-content\/miranda-intelligence\/foreign-press-chatter\/mis-mexico-foreign-press-chatter-jun-12-2025\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T21:36:52","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T03:36:52","slug":"mis-mexico-foreign-press-chatter-jun-12-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miranda-partners.com\/es\/news-and-content\/miranda-intelligence\/foreign-press-chatter\/mis-mexico-foreign-press-chatter-jun-12-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"MI\u2019s Mexico Foreign Press Chatter \u2013 Jun. 12, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

Top stories on Mexico<\/strong><\/h3>

Dedicated to Alan Riding, perhaps Mexico\u2019s greatest foreign correspondent, and certainly one of its most generous.<\/em><\/p>

The wait is finally over: the 2026 World Cup began on Thursday with a 2-0 victory for Mexico over South Africa at Estadio Azteca (\u201dthe closest thing North America has to a football cathedral\u201d, as The Guardian described it) and then with a win for South Korea over Czech Republic in a Guadalajara stadium with \u201cswathes of empty seats\u201d, as reported by Reuters. The media latched onto the comeback story of 35-year-old striker Ra\u00fal Jim\u00e9nez, who scored Mexico\u2019s second goal and his first in a World Cup; Jim\u00e9nez suffered a life-threatening skull fracture in 2020 during a Premier League game and had a setback before the 2022 World Cup.<\/p>

Jack Lang in The Athletic \/ NYT wrote a poem of sorts to the Estadio Azteca that might be the read of the week. \u201cInside the stadium, as the players warmed up, it was impossible not to feel the history that permeates this place. The Azteca is not the stadium it was in 1970 nor even 1986. It has been given countless facelifts, dragged into modernity, for good and ill. Yet the bones of it remain: those imposing external struts, the swaggering sweep of the stands. The sheer scale of it still quickens the pulse when you walk in. Those bones hold stories: tales of Pele, Maradona, the Game of the Century, the Hand of God. Mexico\u2019s own boys of summer \u2014 Manuel Negrete, Hugo Sanchez \u2014 have been a huge part of the build-up this year\u2026. Maybe it\u2019s the quality of the Mexico City light \u2014 hazy, coy. Maybe it\u2019s the altitude, some unexplained particle interplay. No matter; let\u2019s just call it magic.\u201d<\/p>

Foreign press coverage earlier in the week focused on the wider context leading up to the inauguration of the tournament. Reuters published a mesmerising photo essay depicting football pitches and stadiums across the country. The NYT unconventionally decided to actually talk to the Nahua women in Naupan who embroider Adidas special-edition jerseys and who certain influencers claimed were being exploited. They mostly expressed frustration not with the activewear mega-brand, but with the influencers who seemed to be doing most of the exploiting. Naturally the most prominent influencer accused the NYT of taking money to write its story.<\/p>

President Sheinbaum was profiled for The Guardian Long Read by journalist Rachel Nolan this week as \u201cthe world\u2019s most popular leftwing leader\u201d. The piece delves into Sheinbaum\u2019s political and personal history, but ends with Nolan asking the president questions at the ma\u00f1anera about disappearances and militarisation \u2014 which she said left Sheinbaum looking \u201cmildly displeased\u201d \u2014 before Sheinbaum responded with an explanation that the current crisis of disappearances is not the same as those of the 1970s and 80s, and with a defense of the military as \u201cof the people\u201d.<\/p>

In other news, yet another Trump dismissal of the USMCA (\u201dI don\u2019t know if I\u2019m going to renew it\u201d) made (some) headlines, while Bloomberg reported on Mexico\u2019s beef with how the current rules-of-origin calculations put the country\u2019s automakers at a disadvantage compared to competitors from South Korea and Japan.<\/p>

In cultural news, the NYT covered the re-opening of Museo Dolores Olmedo, which one museum director described as a \u201ckind of posthumous reconciliation between Olmedo [a collector and friend of Diego Rivera] and Kahlo\u201d. Finally, the NYT published a warm tribute to Alan Riding, the British journalist and former NYT Mexico Bureau Chief, whose 1984 book\u00a0Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans<\/em>\u00a0about Mexico and its relations with the US, remains forty years later Miranda Intelligence\u2019s favorite book on Mexico by a foreign correspondent. We also recommend the essay by Alan Riding\u2019s great friends, Jorge Casta\u00f1eda\u2019 and Andr\u00e9s Rozental:\u00a0Tribute to Alan Riding in El Universal.<\/a><\/p>

Blogs destacados en ingl\u00e9s sobre M\u00e9xico<\/strong><\/h3>

Ioan Grillo on CrashOut did on-the-ground reporting in the streets of Mexico City ahead of the World Cup opener, talking to some of the CNTE teachers participating in the sit-in protests \u2014 who are disheartened with Sheinbaum and Morena \u2014 as well as business owners affected by the disruptions. On Mexico Decoded, Viri R\u00edos analysed Sheinbaum and Morena moving into a phase of \u201copen resistance\u201d against Trump in the face of broadening electoral meddling by the US in Latin America. The Mexico Political Economist focused on the upward climb in Mexico\u2019s electronics exports versus automotive parts, arguing that there is a risk of it becoming just another part of the country\u2019s \u201cwell-established and world famous maquila system\u201d. Materia Gris reported on the stories of families hoping to draw more attention to their search for missing loved ones during the largest sporting event in history.<\/p>