France vs Senegal opens the Group I story. It is a repeat of the 2002 World Cup opener, one of the biggest shocks in tournament history, and expectations are similarly high for Les Bleus as they face the side whose African title was taken from them in the boardrooms of CAF. Norway follow, with Erling Haaland leading a team playing its first major tournament since 2000. For so long the coming force of European football, Norway arrive on a day built around the stars. They do not come much brighter than Lionel Messi.
Just how good is Messi in 2026?
Three and a half years ago, Messi was 35 and still quite clearly the greatest footballer on the planet. The World Cup had emphatically bent to his narrative arc. He was still playing passes that no one else could see on their televisions, let alone with 21 men hurtling around him. If Messi had been a writer, he would have called it a day in Lusail as champion of the world. Sport rarely offers such perfect end points, and when they do, the best are usually too competitive to see the value of going out on top.
And so Messi has endured. His last two seasons have been spent lighting up MLS as and when the mood takes him. He was quite clearly the best footballer on the continent of North America until everyone else decamped here at the start of the summer. Look at those bars. That is just silly stuff from Leo. It is also what makes him so hard to assess. Yes, Messi is running rings around the Columbus Crew, but a league rating model like Opta's would say he would find greater tests back in his homeland of Argentina or even the second tier of the English game. The World Cup promises to be a step up. So too will be the talent that surrounds him.
Messi is swapping out the quickly retiring Barca veterans of Inter Miami for Julian Alvarez and Lautaro Martinez as his targets, with talent aplenty in the midfield to provide him with service. In such circumstances, it is hard to believe that Messi is going to be a disappointment. The best player in MLS could and should still be a very good player in the World Cup. And of course, he is Messi. He might be much, much better than that.
The 100th percentile creator and scorer Stateside might be the 95th percentile in Europe. Or this might be his Michael Jordan at the Washington Wizards World Cup: a great player still performing at an All Star level, just not performing at the level that only they could ever reach.
Mbappe on defense and the scoring record
The man who might have inherited Messi's title as the greatest player in Europe has heard all the critiques. He gets it. Forty two goals and six assists in 43 games for Real Madrid last season is not enough. Kylian Mbappe is going to have to get back on defense.
I need to take the extra step [with my defense] because it's something important for the team and I have to do it. It will start this time because we want to win, and to win, I'm ready to do whatever because I want to win at all costs.
It takes quite something for one of the best pure scorers in the game, who needs four goals to match the World Cup's all time scoring record at 27 years of age, to be doing so little defensively that it is actually a problem. Then again, when you look at Mbappe's defensive numbers, they are quite something.
Among qualifying attacking players in La Liga last season, Marcus Rashford ranked second from bottom for total pressures per 90. He attempted 22.51. The average across the division was 42.08. Mbappe attempted 16.99. Even his Real Madrid teammate Vinicius Junior, not renowned as a model of defensive work rate, pressed about twice as frequently.
