It was 6pm on 5 July in Mexico City, and Alireza Faghani, a 48-year-old Australian-Iranian, was asleep in the locker room, snoring. His assistants had turned the music down. Had it not been for the muffled roar of nearly 90,000 fans through the concrete walls of the Estadio Azteca, he could have slept until the following morning.
Faghani was the referee for Mexico v England in the last 16 at the 2026 World Cup. Mexico hadn’t lost a competitive game at the Azteca since 2013, at least in part because they’re used to the conditions. Situated 2,240 metres above sea level, the air contains less oxygen.
Opponents struggle to breathe, let alone win. This was Faghani’s third match of his fourth World Cup. A contender for the final, he needed a strong performance.
Outside, pouring rain fell from the sky. Thunder cracked overhead. The storm had delayed kick-off by an hour, but it could do little to quell the fans, who banged their drums and sang their chants.
Eventually the noise jolted Faghani into action. He splashed water over his face and reviewed his notes again. As a referee in Australia’s A-League, he knew few of the players well, so he’d been studying their triggers, their temperaments and their tendencies in different match scenarios.
The uncertainty around the kick-off time had disrupted his preparation for the match. Days earlier, amid warnings of extreme weather, Fifa officials had revealed plans to bring kick-off forward by six hours, only to shelve them after Keir Starmer, then the British prime minister, raised concerns that it would favour the hosts by giving England less time to adapt to the altitude. During those hours of uncertainty, Faghani needed to adjust his pre-match physical and nutritional schedule accordingly.
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