Somewhere, newest Mexico superfan Landon Donovan must be smiling.

The Mexican national team is in a relatively tough group in Russia, with defending champ Germany and two other solid teams (Sweden and South Korea.) But from the start of today’s match against Germany, Mexico looked very much up to the challenge, and they fully deserved their breakthrough late in the first half:

Here’s how Mexico (and rumored USMNT candidate) Juan Carlos Osorio celebrated the goal, an angle I love because you can see how early the team knows something could be on:

Andres Cantor is amazing. That goal triggered a massive celebration in Mexico City:

And also in Berlin, which is awesome:

Which in turn registered on the Richter scale:

Germany did come close a few times as the match went on:

But Mexico ended up hanging on for a 1-0 victory, and they now sit atop Group F and look very likely to advance from the group stage for the seventh straight World Cup. Of course, what they’d really like to do is avoid being eliminated in the round of 16 for the seventh straight World Cup, too, but based on today’s performance they look like they’ll have a very good chance to do that.

 

About Jay Rigdon

Jay is a columnist at Awful Announcing. He is not a strong swimmer. He is probably talking to a dog in a silly voice at this very moment.