Ahead of the FIFA World Cup, pickup soccer games in Mexico’s streets are all the rage

MEXICO CITY — On this field, there are no goalkeepers, no grass, no referees. With a little spray paint, any street in the Mexican capital is transformed into a football field, and its residents and sometimes tourists become the actors.

It is a form of street football that has regained popularity thanks to the excitement surrounding the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

In November, four Mexicans founded “Reta Mexa” on social media, where they invite soccer fans to play impromptu matches every Friday on different streets of Mexico City.

“I have a son who loves football and I see that he and his generation have been stuck at home,” said Roy Jiménez, one of the four founders and father of Luis Enrique, a 12-year-old boy.

Playing soccer in the streets is known among Mexicans as “reta,” a word meaning “duel” or “challenge.” It’s part of the country’s street soccer culture, which originated mainly among children but has faded due to concerns about safety on the streets and the popularity of indoor video games.

“It’s to show my son that we can still play in the street,” said Jiménez, a 37-year-old lawyer.

A recent match that Noticias Telemundo attended took place at midday in the Mexico City heat on a street in Roma, a neighborhood popular with tourists and digital nomads from the United States. Jiménez and his son used orange spray paint to mark the corners of the 50-by-10-foot lot, flanked by neighborhood residents’ cars and motorcycles.

Initially, 12 young men showed up for the pickup game. One of them was Jesús González, 21, another founder of Reta Mexico and grandson of Enrique Borja, famous footballer of the 1990s.

“We got together, saw a closed street and saw an opportunity to score two goals and a ball, and we invited passersby to join us,” said González, who played semi-professionally for Mexican teams.

Another player who joined the team was El Bebé del Futbol (The Football Baby), a 29-year-old player who wears a child’s mask when playing and does not reveal his name. El Bebé is from the Tepito district, a popular neighborhood eight kilometers from where the match took place.

“I was born in a poor neighborhood and my whole life revolved around football,” El Bebé said. “Either you behave badly or you stay on the right path, and thanks to football I am on the right path.”

The group uses old football goals. Jiménez explained that he found them abandoned at his parents’ house; they are small because they were originally intended for children.

A game for everyone

Matches are played in teams of three and the first team to score two goals wins. These are very intense matches, but they last around 15 minutes. As the field is in the middle of the street, play often has to be briefly interrupted so that drivers or delivery men on motorcycles can pass. Spectators and curious passers-by gather and to play, they simply have to challenge the winners.

Hannah, Edd and Kenny, British tourists aged 21, 24 and 20, were walking on the sidewalk when they stopped to watch the match. At the end of one of the matches, González invited them to play. Even though none of them spoke Spanish, all three decided to join us. They didn’t win the game, but they said it was a winning experience.

“It was so much fun, that doesn’t happen in the UK,” Hannah said. “I think it really represents Mexican culture, that they include everyone, that foreigners play with locals.”

Edd is a football fan who has played occasionally in the UK, but said he has never done it in the middle of the street.

“This culture is so exciting,” he said.

“The Mexicans are so good with their feet; they are much better than the British,” Edd said, adding that he was jealous of everyone who would come to Mexico for the next World Cup.

Mexico is one of three host countries for the 2026 World Cup, along with the United States and Canada. Thirteen matches will be played in three stadiums: one in Guadalajara, one in Mexico City and a third in Monterrey.

Regarding the impromptu soccer game they participated in, Kenny said he thought it illustrated the “great community” that exists in Mexico.

“It shows how open the country is to tourists and people who don’t live here,” he said.