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Julian Quinones and Raúl Jiménez scored in the space of nine first-half minutes and Mexico defeated Ecuador 2-0 on Tuesday night to break a 40-year drought without a win in the knockout stages and advance to the last 16 of the World Cup.
Quiñones opened the scoring in the 22nd minute while Jiménez added a strike in the 31st minute for the Mexicans, who had not won a knockout match since they defeated Bulgaria in the round of 16 when they hosted the tournament in 1986.
Mexico subsequently lost seven times in a row at the same stage from 1994 to 2018.
At Qatar 2022, they were eliminated in the group stage for the first time since Argentina in 1978.
It was Quiñone’s third goal of the tournament and he is now El Tri’s second-highest scorer in World Cup history behind Luis “Matador” Hernández and Javier “Chicharito” Hernández, who each scored four.
Jiménez scored his second goal of the tournament and has 47 with the national team to break the tie with Jared Borgetti. He is five away from tying “Chicharito” Hernández as Mexico’s all-time leading scorer.
Mexico will play another home game on Sunday against the winner of Wednesday’s match between England and Congo.
Playing at the iconic Azteca Stadium, the Mexican team boasts an unbeaten record across 10 World Cup matches. Mexico have only two official losses at the venue – the last being a World Cup qualifying defeat to Honduras on 6 September 2013.
With the win, Mexico extended its unbeaten run to 12 matches, dating back to a friendly loss to Paraguay in November.
Mexico also became the first CONCACAF team to eliminate a CONMEBOL team in a World Cup knockout match. Teams from South America won the previous five meetings.
Ecuador were trying to progress to the round of 16 for the second time in their history and the first since Germany 2006.
The match started an hour after the original scheduled time due to a thunderstorm.
It was the second match of the tournament affected by the weather. A storm during the match between France and Iraq in Philadelphia on 22 June caused a 2-hour and 11-minute suspension at the end of the first half.
Report from the Associated Press.
