World Cup Day 7: Gods Walk Among Us
The brightest stars command—and take command of—the biggest stages.
When it comes game that inflames the passions of billions around the world, there is no bigger stage than the World Cup. Superstars can thrive in the top leagues of Europe and capture the most coveted prices in club football, but no player truly transcends without a star turn at the World Cup.
It's why, try as many might to make it not so, names like George Best and George Weah sit just off page in the annals of the world's greatest players. Best was a god, perhaps the best player of an age that included the likes of later career Pele, England's Bobby Charlton, and Portugal's Eusebio, but playing for Northern Ireland meant he never got a chance to play for the most famous trophy in the game.
Weah can sit next to Gianni Infantino at the North American World Cup and watch his son play for the United States, but he can't reach back to his own experiences in the tournament. Weah's home nation of Liberia never came close to reaching the finals during his playing career.
Tuesday's matches at World Cup 2026 provided a stage to three of the global game's most dominant goalscorers. All three delivered command performances, perfectly meeting the moment as they began their quests to pull their teams towards the ultimate prize.
Erling Haaland, a machine of a man who eats up ground like a charging rhino but possesses a sublime ability to control his powerful limbs, scored twice for Norway in his World Cup debut against Iraq. His first was a classic forward's goal; with Norway playing up the left side, Haaland sped to the back post, jutting his foot just ahead of Iraqi defender Akam Hashem and with midfield chaser Amir Al-Ammari desperately trying to stop his momentum from behind, to put home a cross from David Møller Wolfe.
As goals go, it didn't look like much. But that's the brilliance of Haaland; his quick reactions and top end speed give him just enough of an advantage to beat everyone else to the ball.
The Norway fans, supporting their team in the World Cup for the first time since 1998, exploded. They'd been rowing their way to the Gillette Stadium for days, apparently without their arms getting tired.
CJ Fogler
Haaland then just...bullied his way to a second when Iraq's goalkeeper failed to appreciate the the Viking closing speed on a soft back pass. It was one of the uglier goals of the tournament so far, but it again put Haaland brutal athletic gifts on display. Norway's return to the World Cup starts with a 4-1 win and Haaland is on his way to added "World Cup hero" to his already prolific resume.
Kylian Mbappe, a player who was meant to ascend into the duopoly of the world's best player with Haaland but has yet to reach those heights of popular acclaim (more on why in a moment), showed why that lack of popular acclaim is immaterial to his quality. Mbappe's particular brand of athletic prowess is smoother, more balletic, and perhaps a touch more aesthetically pleasing than that of Haaland, but the pair share a preternatural ability for putting the ball in the net.
Mbappe did his own double just ahead of Haaland's World Cup debut, helping France to a slow burn 3-1 win over Senegal. Like Haaland, Mbappe scored two very different goals, each exhibiting a different element of his abilities. The first, a clever run across the face of goal to reach a brilliant pass from Michael Olise and turn it past a sprawling Sengalese goalkeeper and the second a blast from 28 yards to the top corner.
France 3, Senegal 1, and one of the pre-tournament favorite were off. From a team perspective it took Les Bleus a distressingly long time to bring its incredible talent to bear on the World Cup opener—until the last half hour put to rest any concerns that the 1998 and 2018 World Cup champions are here to win their third trophy.
Mbappe's two goals brought his career World Cup total to 14, putting him just two behind the record for the men's game held by former Germany striker Miroslav Klose. That total also took him past another active player near the top of the all-time list, the man leading Argentina in its quest to win back-to-back World Cup championships, Lionel Messi.
Mbappe's lead lasted all of a few hours. By 11 PM Eastern Time, Messi had not only passed Mbappe (for the moment), he had tied Klose's record.
The first hat trick of World Cup 2026 featured a pair of vintage Messi goals bracketing a rebound tally Messi earned simply by being the first to react. We turn to Matt Doyle for a thought on Messi's knack for popping in to clean up a rebound.
It's not fair that the greatest dribbler, passer and ball-striker ever also has the best "stay on your toes and play for the rebound" instincts ever.
— Matthew Doyle (@mattdoyle.bsky.social) June 16, 2026 at 10:24 PM
I would add something about Messi's inexplicable ability to slip out of the awareness of defenses to Matt's list. That knack appeared over and over again in Kansas City and played a massive role in both his first and third goals.
Watch the video here for the first goal. Somehow the greatest player anyone has ever seen slips between the Algeria lines in just the right spot for Rodrigo De Paul to pick him out with a pass that allows him to turn, drive towards goal, and fire a left-footed strike expertly placed beyond the goalkeeper's reach.
It seems likely to me that no athlete in the history of the world has had more people from more places attempt to capture the immensity of his talent in words than Lionel Messi. Even now, in this exact moment, thousands of fingers are pounding thousands of keyboards as writers good, bad, and in-between claw desperately for the perfect turn of phrase to illustrate the artistry of a player with two decades of astonishing achievements.
While thinking about the problem of what to write about Messi for this edition of the newsletter in the aftermath of the events in Kansas City, I recalled that I had written something passable about the man back in 2016 while preparing readers for the 2016 Copa America Centenario.
Here we are, a decade later and one week from Messi's 39th birthday, and every word still applies. Not the in the past tense about a player in decline, but in the present about a player for whom the end is still unfathomable.
In the years since I penned that paragraph, Messi added three Ballon d'Or trophies as the world's best player to go with a haul of team achievements for both club and country—with the 2022 World Cup title and the Golden Ball as best player in that tournament rising above the rest.
By winning the World Cup, Messi removed any doubt about his status as the greatest ever to play the game. Fair or not, reaching that mountain top felt like a must for the man from Rosario to surpass Argentinian football's one true love, Diego Maradona, in the minds (if not the hearts) of his home country. Most of us thought—most of us presumed—that winning the World Cup would bring down the curtain on Messi's international career.
Tuesday showed us how just wrong we were.
PROGRAMMING NOTES
I'm working with Eric Wynalda on the radio again today from 4 to 7 PM Eastern Time. That means we'll be live during England-Croatia, a game that may or may not provide evidence about the possibilities of it coming come.
Also, Modric. He's not Messi, but he's still marvel. SiriusXM FC channel 157. Be there.
I'm also going to be doing an episode of The Best Soccer Show live tonight on YouTube with special guest Ryan Rosenblatt. We'll kick off at 8:30 PM ET. Podcast version to follow. Ryan is writing on the World Cup at his newsletter and is a must-read.
See you tomorrow.
