Thank you for joining us, Cape Verde. Appreciate your fight, Paraguay. How to appear in many of your games, USMNT. You’ve got your chance to take the stage at the glamorous World Cup … and now it’s time for the big dogs to shine.
Six of the top eight teams in FIFA’s world rankings are still in this year’s tournament, meaning we’re in for something special when the semi-finals begin on Friday. There’s a time for Cinderella stories, and then there’s a time for the kaiju on the field to just start fighting each other. That time is now.
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Kylian Mbappe and France. Leo Messi and Argentina. Erling Haaland and Norway. Harry Kane and England. These are the sports stars, the nations that rule the world and the men who are the heart, soul and backbone. He dominates both the pitch and the figures, giving us the highlight after the highlight of the cinema that other teams, already finished can only look at and envy.
For example, consider defending champion Messi’s World Cup career goalscoring record:
Or World Cup rookie Haaland just shoots a nuke from long range:
Or snakebit Kane throwing his final penalty kick ghosts:
The most beautiful pictures, all and more. The goalscorers are well on their way to double digits in goals scored; Messi has 8, Mbappe and Haaland are one behind him, and Kane has 6. The teams are in position – each country only one win in the semifinals, two wins in the final.
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Between now and those finals, we’ll have two sets of two days off, time to let the tension build, time for the players involved to think about the magnitude of what they’re about to face. It’s not too much to say that what these squads do in the next few days will shape the rest of their lives. If they succeed, if they fail, they will have millions watching – and remembering – their every move.
The quadrennial nature of the World Cup means that each goal, and each miss, carries much more weight than the same performance in the annual tournament. Messi and Mbappe already know this; Kane, Haaland and others are about to find out.
Mbappe won his first World Cup, aged 19, by scoring France’s last goal in the 2018 final, a 4-2 win over Croatia. Four years later, Mbappe doubled that tally, scoring twice in the 2022 final to push the game to penalties … where Argentina won. In that game, Messi ended the frustration of his life, scoring two goals to help La Albiceleste win the title.
Lionel Messi (10) lifted the World Cup trophy after beating France to win the final match of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, ending Argentina’s 36-year drought.
(Washington Post via Getty Images)
It’s also important to note that inheritance can be broken in another way, too. France’s Zinedine Zidane scored the opening goal in the 2006 tournament, and after that, Les Bleus lost to Italy. Italy’s Roberto Baggio hit his fifth and final penalty over the crossbar, giving Brazil the 1994 World Cup. Portugal’s young Cristiano Ronaldo cemented his heel early when he saved Man U team-mate Wayne Rooney from a controversial red card during Portugal’s 2006 quarter-final exit over England.
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There are also bulls who have not yet reached the level expected of them in this year’s competition. Can Spain’s Lamine Yamal (just one goal so far) come in and dominate this tournament at just 18? Will England’s Jude Bellingham or France’s Ousmane Dembélé outshine their teammates in the final few games? Does Belgium’s Romelu Lukaku still have one more moment of glory ahead of him? Can Achraf Hakimi and Morocco be the first country in Africa to lift the world cup?
Here, now, is where World Cup legacies are born. This is where history is made. The world will be discussing what happened, and what didn’t happen, in the days to come for years to come. Who will rise up to meet this time, and who will be excluded and pushed aside?
