Raul Jiménez capped Mexico’s 2-0 World Cup opening win over South Africa at the Estadio Azteca, sealing a fourth tournament moment he once feared would never come after a fractured skull and brain bleed in a horror Arsenal collision in November 2020. At 35, he
When the ball dropped kindly at the far post, it looked like the kind of chance every striker dreams of. For Raul Jiménez, it also looked like something he might never get again.
Mexico’s forward was mobbed by teammates after he nodded home to make it 2-0 against South Africa in the World Cup opening fixture at the Estadio Azteca. The night carried the weight of a lifetime: 80,000 inside the stadium pulsed as Mexico built on Julian Quinones’s ninth-minute strike on Thursday.
Jiménez’s goal came in the 67th minute, turning a strong start into a night that felt fully controlled. After the strike, he ran to the corner flag, visibly emotional, and looked up to the heavens. A few days later. the story around that moment would only deepen—because it arrived after the death of his father in March.
It was Jiménez’s fourth World Cup goal, and the first at this stage in what had once seemed impossible. At 35, he has now joined Mexico’s history books with 46 goals in 125 appearances, putting him joint second in the Mexico hall of fame behind Javier Hernandez, who has 52.
Former England defender Gary Neville, speaking on ITV, said: “That is likely to be the greatest moment of his life from a football perspective, scoring in front of 80,000 in that stadium, in his home country. It is a great moment for him.”
The scale of the celebration becomes easier to understand when you remember what it took to get there.
In November 2020. while playing for Wolves against Arsenal. Jiménez suffered a life-threatening head injury after a clash of heads with David Luiz. The incident happened just four and a half minutes into the Premier League fixture. The Emirates fell silent as he received extensive care from medical staff of both clubs. and he was taken off on a stretcher after almost 10 minutes of treatment.
With an oxygen mask covering his face, Jiménez’s fiancee Daniel Basso said she feared the worst. “In that moment, unfortunately, my first thought was that he had died,” she said. “Normally when players fall and get hurt, they react.”
She added: “It was 45 minutes until I knew he was alive. Not until I knew that he was well, or that he would be OK, just alive. Imagine 45 minutes where I had to try to keep myself calm and tell myself it would all be all right.”
The injury itself was brutal in its details: Jiménez fractured his skull and suffered a bleed on the brain.
In an interview with The Guardian, he later described what doctors told him and what the damage meant for his body. “They told me it was like a miracle to be there,” Jiménez recalled, adding that the fractured bone was “pushing my brain to the inside”.
Six years on, that survival feels almost unreal—especially against the backdrop of what he built before the injury ever interrupted his career.
Jiménez grew up in Tepeji del Rio de Ocampo with friends using stones as goalposts and cars passing by the only interruption as he honed his skills in the streets. After impressing at boyhood club Club America. he signed for Atletico Madrid in the summer of 2014 in a move worth £8.5million. Under Diego Simeone, he felt unsettled and featured once in the 2014-15 season.
Benfica signed him the following year for £15.8m, and it was in Portugal that he found rhythm. He scored 31 goals and won back-to-back league titles with the Portuguese giants.
Then came England — and a career that became his home. Jiménez initially arrived on loan from Benfica, before the move was made permanent in 2019 for £33m. After a debut season at Molineux that saw him score 13 Premier League goals and provide seven assists. Wolves finished seventh. returning to European competition for the first time since 1980.
He also had an edge in knockout football, scoring four times in six FA Cup games including a goal at Wembley in the semi-final against Watford. In Europa League action, he made nine appearances and was involved in seven goals as Wolves reached the quarterfinal stage.
The season that followed included four goals in 10 Premier League appearances, culminating in the night against Arsenal that changed everything.
After the injury, Jiménez spent time in rehabilitation that demanded patience rather than pace. In July 2021, after eight months of gruelling recovery, he returned to football. On September 14. in a match against Southampton. he scored his first goal in 336 days. sending 3. 000 Wolves supporters into a frenzy and showing the world he was back.
The impact of that return carried into every part of the story that followed. In the 2022-23 campaign, Wolves finished 13th and Jiménez found the net just three times in 20 league appearances. He then chose a change of scenery, signing for Fulham in a deal worth up to £5.5m.
He has now returned to Wolves this summer after the expiration of his contract at the Cottagers. His contribution at Fulham mattered too: 31 goals across three seasons in all competitions played a central role in Fulham pushing for European football. and it also helped secure his place in Mexico’s 26-man World Cup squad.
Mexico’s World Cup schedule now moves quickly. Their opening match against South Africa came as a repeat of the tournament’s 2010 opener. which ended in a 1-1 draw in Johannesburg. Mexico had led through Quinones’s ninth-minute strike last Thursday, before Jiménez’s 67th-minute header settled the match.
He will now look to carry that emotion into the next game. On Friday, Mexico are set to face South Korea at Guadalajara Stadium, with Jiménez hoping to make it “two-in-two” at the tournament after his opening goal.
The human arc is what makes this night linger: from Tepeji del Rio’s street goals to a stadium packed with people singing his name, from a fractured skull and a bleed on the brain to a World Cup goal in front of his home crowd.
Raul Jimenez Mexico World Cup Estadio Azteca South Africa Julian Quinones Gary Neville Wolves Fulham Arsenal David Luiz Tepeji del Rio de Ocampo Guadalajara Stadium South Korea