Three red cards - are referees getting tough at this World Cup?
Gone are the days when World Cup games were littered with red cards. Or so we thought. Three reds were shown in the opener on Thursday as Mexico beat South Africa 2-0 . South Africa's Yaya Sithole and Themba Zwane were sent off, and then Mexico's Cesar Montes was dismissed in s
Gone are the days when World Cup games were littered with red cards. Or so we thought.
Three reds were shown in the opener on Thursday as Mexico beat South Africa 2-0 .
South Africa's Yaya Sithole and Themba Zwane were sent off, and then Mexico's Cesar Montes was dismissed in stoppage time.
Maybe we had been spoiled. The World Cups in Russia and Qatar both saw just four red cards in the whole tournament. The 2026 tournament has nearly matched that already.
It had been 20 years since three players were sent off in one match, in the 2006 finals when 28 players saw red.
That was a remarkable tournament which saw three players dismissed in three separate games, and the all-time record of four reds in Portugal v Netherlands .
Are we about to go back to those days? Will the 2026 World Cup be remembered for red cards being handed out like confetti?
In 2017, Pierluigi Collina was appointed as Fifa's new head of referees and it heralded a very different era.
