Four lives lost cannot bring an earlier kickoff; Kane put on earplugs in Mexico City.

When fireworks exploded outside the hotel window, the Ecuador national team had been lying down for less than two hours.

It was late on June 30th, Mexico City. They had flown in from Ohio, their flight delayed by three hours. After landing, transferring to a bus, and checking in, the ordeal dragged on until the early hours of the morning. Waiting outside the window was a different kind of reception—megaphones, car horns, motorcycle engines roaring in turns, and chants of human voices, one after another.

Megaphones need power, motorcycles need coordination, and car horns require someone to drive the vehicles right under the hotel entrance. This wasn't a few hundred drunken stragglers. The Ecuadorian Football Federation later filed a formal complaint with FIFA, wording it as "organized interference," condemning such behavior as contrary to sportsmanship and violating the principles of fair play.

The complaint fell on deaf ears.

The next night, Mexico eliminated Ecuador 2-0. Raúl Jiménez and Julián Quiñones scored two goals within nine minutes in the first half, ending the match's suspense early. Mexico's response came quickly—Ecuadorians were making excuses for losing.

Forty-eight hours later, England arrived.

As the bus carrying Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham pulled into the hotel entrance, hundreds of people were already blocking the way. Boos were overwhelming, chants of "Mexico! Mexico!" came in waves, and police escorted the players through the crowd into the lobby. The English Football Association had done something Ecuador hadn't had time to do—keeping the hotel address strictly confidential, known only to a very few insiders.

The location was still leaked.

Reports from The Sun and BILD pointed to the same claim: Mexican journalists planned to disclose the hotel location to fans once found. Multiple British media outlets cross-referenced this source. The English FA subsequently obtained FIFA authorization to set up roadblocks and checkpoints around the hotel.

A national team composed of Premier League's highest-paid players needed roadblocks to protect their sleep.

The supply list prepared by the English FA for the players read like a battlefield logistics manual: earplugs, natural sleep aids, white noise devices, sleep masks. Tuchel kept the team at the training base in Kansas City, only flying to Mexico City on Friday. The delayed arrival had nothing to do with altitude sickness; they feared intelligence being gathered on them.

Mexico City sits at an altitude of 2,240 meters, with thin oxygen. The Estadio Azteca is a sacred ground for the Mexican team; Mexico has played ten World Cup matches there without a loss. These difficulties written into the schedule, England accepted. What made them treat it as a major threat was what lay beyond the schedule.

Ecuador's experience that night was now replicable.

On June 30th, Mexico eliminated Ecuador 2-0. That night, over a million people flooded the streets of Mexico City to celebrate. Four people died—three from suffocation, one of them a 19-year-old woman. Reuters and The New York Times confirmed this number.

FIFA panicked internally. They discussed moving the England vs. Mexico kick-off time forward by six hours—from 6 PM local time to noon. The stated reason was thunderstorm weather. Mexican local media first broke the real story, with The Athletic and others following up: what truly worried FIFA was crowd control. An evening kick-off meant fans had all day to drink, and four bodies were still warm.

This plan never materialized. Mexico's head coach Javier Aguirre opposed it, saying it would completely disrupt the team's physical, nutritional, and tactical preparation plans, "like being kicked in the stomach." FIFA backed down. The match remained at its original time.

Four lives. A proposal to move six hours. An internal discussion. A withdrawal.

The most glaring part of the whole affair is right here. Fans setting off fireworks outside a hotel isn't new in the football world. What's new is that the celebration had already turned into a public safety incident with deaths by suffocation, and FIFA's first reaction was to change the schedule, and its second was to revert it after being stared down.

The information war surrounding this match was escalating. Multiple Ecuadorian media outlets claimed the team received death threats from Mexican drug cartels before the match, with players' home addresses and personal information already obtained. Marca then quoted Ecuadorian FA official Portilla denying this—"There are no threats against any Ecuadorian players." Which version of the truth holds is currently undetermined. But the accusation itself is enough to illustrate the pre-match atmosphere.

Mexico has indeed played tough in this World Cup. Four wins, zero goals conceded, eight goals scored. They are one of the hosts, and the Azteca's historical record speaks for itself.

But the term "home advantage" has taken on a new meaning in Mexico City in 2026. Hotel location intelligence, organized noise equipment, journalists cooperating in leaks, fans executing blockades—a whole system operates without anyone needing to give orders. Ecuador was crushed by it, out 0-2. England is walking into the same trap.

Tuchel has experienced hostile away grounds at Dortmund and Chelsea. But the hostility of European away matches is not on the same level as Mexico City. European fans will boo you, throw things at the bus; they won't get your hotel room number, won't have journalists help them transmit coordinates, won't have four people die while celebrating a victory.

The match hasn't been played yet. England vs. Mexico, Estadio Azteca, Sunday local time 6 PM.

The pre-match shadow war has already concluded one round. England brought earplugs, white noise, and police. Ecuador left behind a complaint letter and a 0-2 scoreline. FIFA put the six-hour advance plan back in the drawer. Four people were buried in graves.

The next one to lose sleep is Kane.