Noche Loca 2018 World Cup: Mexico squad caught in pre-tournament orgy

With the 2026 World Cup in Qatar due to get underway on 11 June, we are taking a look back at a crazy scandal from the 2018 tournament in Russia, the night nine players from the Mexico squad were caught in a pre-tournament orgy, known as ‘Noche Loca', which translates to ‘crazy night' from Spanish.

Namely, this story involves drugs, prostitutes and a 24-hour party that reportedly transformed into a full-on orgy, which we will detail in the article below.

Also, feel free to check out our dedicated World Cup predictions & betting tips page, which we will be keeping updated throughout the tournament in Canada, Mexico and the United States.

Noche Loca 2018 World Cup: Mexico squad caught in pre-tournament orgy

Orgy less than a week before World Cup started

Mexico had a bunch of friendly matches lined up to keep them sharp, and right before this supposed orgy, Mexico had a friendly game against Scotland. 

The game was played in Mexico City, so the Mexican players were on home turf.

Ultimately, the game finished with Mexico taking the win by a score of 1-0, and they were due to fly out to Russia for the World Cup about a week after that match.

So really, the players were in the midst of preparations for the biggest tournament in world football, and not a good time to be arranging a 24-hour party loaded with booze, drugs, and prostitutes.

With that said, it is the timing of this that makes the story particularly famous, as it showed a complete lack of care for preparation, and some would say it showed a lack of respect for the privileged position these players were given.

Guillermo Ochoa and Raul Jimenez among those involved in orgy

As the official report goes, several Mexican players rented houses around Mexico City to stay in following the friendly match against Scotland, so clearly, they already had the intention of staging such a party before they stepped onto the pitch.

There were a bunch of players involved in this scandal, with such names including Guillermo Ochoa, Marco Fabian, Raul Jimenez, as well as two brothers, Giovani and Jonathan dos Santos. 

These guys, as well as some of the others also had wives and girlfriends, which made this particularly big news.

Adding fuel to the fire, a boatload of prostitutes were photographed heading into the party.

While there is no official number, reports indicate that between 20 and 30 prostitutes were involved in the party, so again, this was not something that the guys had arranged in the ‘spur of the moment’.

They sealed things off by including drugs like cocaine at the party, however, we would imagine that the Mexican players would receive drug testing heading into the World Cup.

Thus, it is unclear as to whether they were actually involved with the drug taking, or whether they simply supplied it to their ‘guests’. 

The aftermath of Noche Loca

Given that newspapers and local media had rumbled the players for staging this party, there was obviously going to be some backlash, right?

Well, you might have thought so, but the Mexican coach did not dish out any disciplinary action whatsoever.

In fact, he actually defended the guys in the media, claiming that this was not done during the tournament, and also said that they had not violated any team rules, they had not missed training, and they had not been unable to perform in any matches as a result of their actions.

The Mexican Federation Secretary-General also said – ‘a day off is a day off’, and beyond these brief media interactions following the event, it was never really highlighted again by the Mexican press.

Mexico at the 2018 World Cup

Given that Germany had won the previous World Cup tournament in 2014, nobody really expected that Mexico would win their opening group game, but they were victorious 1-0.

Then, Mexico beat South Korea 2-1 in their second group match, before losing 3-0 to Sweden in their final game of the group stage.

Brazil finished top of Group E, and since Mexico finished as the runners-up in Group F, they were drawn against the five-time World Cup champions.

Of course, this was a nightmare draw for Mexico, especially given the strength of the Brazilian squad, and they subsequently lost 2-0.

Brazil dominated the game in all areas, and courtesy of goals from Coutinho and Neymar, the Mexicans were sent packing.