Raul Jimenez gets another shot at Jordan Pickford in Mexico vs England at Estadio Azteca. The Mexico striker has scored six goals against Pickford in 12 matches, the best return he has against any goalkeeper, and he carries that record into a match played in the night from Sunday to Monday Polish time.
Jimenez, 35, has 47 goals in 129 matches for Mexico. England comes in with a sharper edge only from its first group-stage match, a 4:2 win over Chorwacja, while its later games against Ghana, Panama and Demokratyczna Republika Konga did not look like the work of a side built to win the world title.
Jimenez and Pickford
The matchup puts Jimenez against a goalkeeper he has already beaten repeatedly. Pickford has allowed six of those goals across a dozen meetings, and the numbers put the England keeper at the center of Mexico’s clearest attacking edge.
That same duel also connects to England’s own attack. Harry Kane has scored 14 goals against Pickford in the mundial, so the goalkeeper enters this meeting with one teammate who has hurt him often and one opponent who has done the same.
Mexico’s clean run
Mexico arrives unbeaten and without a goal conceded before facing England. It beat RPA, Korea Poludniowa, Czechy and Ekwador, a sequence that leaves the host side with perfect results and a defensive record that forces England to chase the game rather than settle into it.
For Jimenez, that run adds more weight to the chance in front of him. A forward who has already scored six times against Pickford now meets him in a match where Mexico has not yet been breached, at Estadio Azteca, with the balance tilted by form as much as by memory.
England at Estadio Azteca
England still carries the label of a favorite, but its later performances have not matched that billing. The 4:2 win over Chorwacja showed one version of the side; the drop in level against Ghana, Panama and Demokratyczna Republika Konga showed another.
That leaves one clean question hanging over the night from Sunday to Monday Polish time: whether Pickford can hold Jimenez down again while England tries to steady itself against a Mexico side that has won every match and conceded none. At Estadio Azteca, the numbers favor the striker who has already made this duel his own.
