Best Bet for Mexico vs. South Africa
- Mexico Win and Under 3.5: The opening game of the tournament, on their home turf, is too much for South Africa to overcome. It’ll be a low-scoring affair, but Mexico will come away with the three points.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup has finally arrived, and the opening match of the tournament will feature one of the host nations, Mexico, facing off against South Africa.
Let’s dive into my favorite bet for this match.
Mexico vs. South Africa Prediction, Pick
This bet can be found under the “Match Parlays” tab. It’s hard to get a good idea of what this Mexico team is going to look like in this tournament, given that they automatically qualified as a host nation. International friendlies aren’t the best context to use, but it’s all we have for this team. Mexico have played seven friendlies in 2026, winning five and drawing two. The two draws were against some tough competition in Portugal and Belgium, so it suggests the team is in a good place.
Most of the games however, were low scoring, which is why I’m taking Mexico to win and for three or fewer goals to be scored in the game. In six of the seven games, three or fewer goals were scored. The only exception was a 4-0 win over Iceland. In the other six games, we actually had some wiggle room, as two or fewer goals were scored in all of those contests.
South Africa comes into this game on a different trajectory, having failed to win each of their last four games. In all four of those games, three or fewer goals were scored. They did draw two of those, but I wouldn’t exactly put too much into those against Panama and Nicaragua.
Mexico is a whole new kettle of fish, ranked 15th in the FIFA World Rankings. South Africa finds themselves much further down the rankings, coming in at 60th. When you factor in that this match will be played in Mexico, for the opening game of the tournament, I don’t give the South Africans much of a chance in that kind of environment.
Best Bet: Mexico Win and Under 3.5 (-140)
Additional World Cup Coverage
Check out the World Cup landing page at DraftKings Network for more World Cup content!
