MOSCOW — Hirving Lozano’s first-half goal and sturdy second-half defense gave Mexico a 1-0 victory over Germany on Sunday, providing the first major surprise of the 2018 World Cup. It was hard to recall a bigger result for Mexico, which has hosted the World Cup twice but has never advanced past the quarterfinals.
Germany 0 Final 1 Mexico
Germany, the defending World Cup champion, has won the tournament four times, and was expected to seriously challenge for a fifth crown in Russia. But the Germans seemed flummoxed by the Mexicans’ speed and directness in the first half, and they couldn’t find a reply to Lozano’s goal.
The largely pro-Mexican crowd willed their team to victory in the final 20 minutes, when they gave up the initiative but never surrendered. Mexico even recorded a World Cup milestone in the second half: the veteran defender Rafael Márquez came on as a substitute in the 74th minute, becoming only the third player to appear in five World Cups.
Germany seemed out of sorts for most of the game, put off by Mexico’s initiative, its willingness to attack in numbers and, perhaps most important, by its speed. Mexico Coach Juan Carlos Osorio said that had been his team’s attack plan for six months: to exploit the speed of Lozano on the wing in partnership with players like Miguel Layún and Javier Hernández.