Blow by blow: South Korea vs Mexico

After perhaps the most eye-catching victory of the opening round, Mexico must ensure they back things up now they face the pressure of favouritism.

South Korea were game but limited in their opening defeat to Sweden and, while Mexico’s gameplan will have to change for this very different test, any performance approaching that they produced against Germany should be enough.

Mexico, though, look short enough at 7/10. This is a huge, huge game for them. They’ve been knocked out in the last 16 at each of the last six World Cups; victory here would put them on course to top the group and (probably) avoid Brazil in the first knockout round.

With Serbia or Switzerland in wait, Mexico would have an outstanding chance of reaching the last eight for the first time since they hosted in 1986. That’s big pressure, and pressure that simply didn’t exist in that opening game against the Germans.

They should, though, still have enough here. So how do we make that price a bit more appealing?

Hirving Lozano looks the key. He scored in three of his last five appearances in qualification and again in the opening game here. In two of those four games, his goal was the only goal and it’s 16/1 for that to be the case again.

Elsewhere, Draw/Mexico in the HT/FT market looks solid enough at 3/1, as does 9/4 for Mexico to win the game by exactly one goal.

·    Mexico to win by exactly one goal at 9/4

·    Hirving Lozano to score and Mexico to win 1-0 at 16/1