Mexico
- Coach
- Javier Aguirre
- Elo (model)
- 1,875 world 13th
- Squad value
- €289M
- Power → Reality
- 18th 18th +0.07 pp · neutral draw
§ 01
The forecast
How far Mexico goes — the survival probability at each stage of the bracket, from the tournament Monte-Carlo simulation. Each bar carries its ±1.96·MC-SE interval.
Fig. D1 Fixture-aware · 100k sims
Mexico — stage progression
On the central forecast, Mexico more likely than not reaches the Round of 16 (54%). Champion probability is 1.1% ± 0.03 pts.
§ 02
The group & the path
Group A advancement odds, the bracket half Mexico sits in, and the earliest round they could meet each leading side.
| Group A | Confed | Advance (top 2) | Reach R32 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🇲🇽Mexico | CONCACAF | 54.5% | 92.7% |
| 2 | 🇨🇿Czechia | UEFA | 35.6% | 73.4% |
| 3 | 🇰🇷Korea Republic | AFC | 31.8% | 68.4% |
| 4 | 🇿🇦South Africa | CAF | 10.1% | 34.7% |
Source · Oxford Football Forecasting model
Earliest possible meetings
No collision rows recorded for this team.
Collision = the earliest round the bracket wiring could pit Mexico against that side. Full bracket & collision matrix →
§ 03
Match by match
Mexico's three group fixtures, each with the predicted win / draw / loss split and the single most-likely scoreline. Probabilities are this team's own orientation; they sum to 100%.
How a match forecast is built
Each pairing is scored by the ensemble (Dixon-Coles bivariate-Poisson, the Bayesian hierarchical model and the global LightGBM-Poisson, log-pooled), producing an 11×11 scoreline grid that is marginalised into win/draw/loss, expected goals (λ), over/under 2.5 and both-teams-to-score. These are the same distributions the tournament simulator consumes, oriented here to Mexico. Knockout fixtures are not shown — their occupants are still probabilistic, so there is no single pairing to forecast yet.
§ 04
Strength profile
Where Mexico stands against the median of the 48-team field, metric by metric. The dot is Mexico; the dashed line is the field median (1.0×).
Fig. D2 Relative to the 48-team median
Mexico vs the field
Read each row as a multiple of the field median: dots to the right of the dashed line are above-field, to the left below. Raw values are labelled on the right so the comparison is transparent.
§ 05
History vs squad
The decoupling residual g — whether the squad’s market value sits above, or below, what the team’s record predicts.
Fig. D3 Bayesian projection residual g
Mexico on the decoupling axis
g = −0.40 ± 0.05: the record outruns the squad price — the team has achieved more than its comparatively modest squad value would predict.
What g means — and its limits
g is the residual from regressing a team’s current squad market value on its
history-based strength in the Bayesian hierarchical model. Positive g
means the squad is valued above what the team’s record predicts; negative means the
record outruns the squad’s price (the side achieves more than its market value implies).
Regressed on out-of-sample success the slope is positive — squad-rich sides go a touch
further — but not statistically significant at n = 3 tournaments, so treat
a single team’s g as a descriptive read, not a hard prediction.
The full decoupling essay →
§ 06
The squad
All 26 selected players — club, league (with relative strength), club-season minutes and goals, caps. Sort any column.
| # | Player | Pos | Club | League | Club min | Gls | Caps | NT gls |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Raúl Rangel | GK | Guadalajara | Liga MX +0.22z | 3,643 | 0 | 14 | 0 |
| 2 | Jorge Sánchez | DF | PAOK | Super League 1 +0.03z | 728 | 0 | 59 | 3 |
| 3 | César Montes | DF | Lokomotiv Moscow | Premier League +0.27z | 2,208 | 4 | 67 | 4 |
| 4 | Edson Álvarez (captain) | DF | Fenerbahçe | Süper Lig +0.49z | 1,081 | 0 | 98 | 7 |
| 5 | Johan Vásquez | DF | Genoa | Serie A +1.70z | 3,491 | 1 | 46 | 3 |
| 6 | Érik Lira | MF | Cruz Azul | Liga MX +0.22z | 3,923 | 0 | 25 | 0 |
| 7 | Luis Romo | MF | Guadalajara | Liga MX +0.22z | 2,964 | 1 | 63 | 4 |
| 8 | Álvaro Fidalgo | MF | Real Betis | La Liga +2.13z | 748 | 1 | 4 | 0 |
| 9 | Raúl Jiménez | FW | Fulham | Premier League +2.21z | 2,579 | 10 | 124 | 45 |
| 10 | Alexis Vega | FW | Toluca | Liga MX +0.22z | 1,869 | 4 | 52 | 7 |
| 11 | Santiago Giménez | FW | Milan | — | — no club data | — | 47 | 6 |
| 12 | Carlos Acevedo | GK | Santos Laguna | Liga MX +0.22z | 3,036 | 0 | 7 | 0 |
| 13 | Guillermo Ochoa | GK | AEL Limassol | 1. Division −0.31z | 720 | 0 | 152 | 0 |
| 14 | Armando González | FW | Guadalajara | Liga MX +0.22z | 3,637 | 7 | 7 | 1 |
| 15 | Israel Reyes | DF | América | Liga MX +0.22z | 3,547 | 0 | 34 | 2 |
| 16 | Julián Quiñones | FW | Al-Qadsiah | Pro League −0.86z | 2,724 | 33 | 22 | 2 |
| 17 | Orbelín Pineda | MF | AEK Athens | Super League 1 +0.03z | 3,514 | 5 | 92 | 12 |
| 18 | Obed Vargas | MF | Atlético Madrid | La Liga +2.13z | 751 | 0 | 6 | 0 |
| 19 | Gilberto Mora | MF | Tijuana | Liga MX +0.22z | 1,557 | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| 20 | Mateo Chávez | DF | AZ | Eredivisie +0.74z | 1,609 | 1 | 10 | 0 |
| 21 | César Huerta | FW | Anderlecht | Jupiler Pro League −0.07z | 681 | 1 | 26 | 3 |
| 22 | Guillermo Martínez | FW | Pumas | — | — no club data | — | 12 | 3 |
| 23 | Jesús Gallardo | DF | Toluca | Liga MX +0.22z | 3,093 | 5 | 121 | 3 |
| 24 | Luis Chávez | MF | Dynamo Moscow | Premier League +0.27z | 164 | 0 | 45 | 5 |
| 25 | Roberto Alvarado | FW | Guadalajara | Liga MX +0.22z | 2,722 | 4 | 67 | 5 |
| 26 | Brian Gutiérrez | MF | Guadalajara | Liga MX +0.22z | 828 | 0 | 7 | 2 |
Source · Official squad announcements · API-Football (global club coverage). 2 of 26 players have no club season matched in API-Football — shown as “— no club data”, not imputed. Form coverage for this squad: 92%.
§ 07
Tournament context
The host-nation environment this team meets — diaspora support, climate and altitude exposure at their venues, language familiarity.
Diaspora in the hosts
10,939,885
84.0 per 1,000 of home population
Host-language familiarity
Shared
primary language Spanish · spoken in a host
Climate adaptation gap
−2.5°C
home-vs-venue heat differential
Venue extremes
30°C
peak heat index · altitude up to 2,287 m
Travel
0h
max time-zone shift · nearest venue 14 km
Source · UN DESA international migrant stock · US Census Bureau · Open-Meteo & venue records
§ 08
Elo trajectory
Mexico's long-run strength against the qualified-field median, 1950–2026.
Fig. D4 eloratings.net method · year-end values
Mexico — Elo since 1950
Mexico ends the series at 1980 Elo, the world’s 13th-ranked side — above the qualified-field median.
Which Elo is this?
This line is the public eloratings.net series (year-end ratings), which terminates exactly at the current rating and world rank shown on the marker. It is a different number from the Elo shown in the header band (a panel-normalised rating used inside the forecast); the two are ~0.99 correlated but on different scales. We keep them distinct rather than blend them.
§ 09
Data coverage
Validated on n=3 held-out tournaments; coverage below 1.0 means part of this squad's club-form/fitness is imputed (the global de-biasing layer). For Mexico, 2 of 26 players are shown as “— no club data”. Full validation, calibration & conformal coverage →