Hyderabad, June 12 -- There are football nights and then there are nights like this. Eighty thousand people packed into one stadium, fireworks in the sky and a Colombian woman in the middle of it all.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup opened at the Estadio Azteca on Thursday, June 11.

Mana, Belinda, J Balvin

The ceremony started just before 6 pm local time with a dance and theatrical performance tracing the roots of Mexican culture - colour, movement, a full house behind it. Then Mana took the stage and the noise inside the Azteca picked up fast.

Belinda, the Latin Grammy-nominated and about as popular as it gets in this country, followed, and the crowd went up another notch. Then J Balvin, who opened with "Que Calor" before doing his verse fro...