Squads are not locked until just before kickoff, so this list will be updated if final rosters change anything.
The World Cup is back, it is the biggest one ever, and for the first time in over thirty years it is being played here. Forty-eight teams, 104 matches, three host countries: the United States, Canada, and Mexico, running from June 11 to July 19. If you have not figured out how you are actually going to watch it, start there and come back.
This is not a ranking of the best players in the world, and it is not a prediction of who lifts the trophy. It is the twelve players most worth your attention over the next five weeks: the icons playing their last one, the heirs trying to take over, the ones carrying an entire country, and the one carrying the host. A few you already know by heart. A couple you are about to.
1. Lionel Messi
Argentina · Forward · Inter Miami CF
He already got the perfect ending. In 2022 Messi lifted the only trophy that had ever escaped him, played the tournament of his life doing it, and gave the greatest-of-all-time argument its final word. So everything in 2026 is extra, which is exactly why it is worth watching. He turns 39 during the group stage, this is almost certainly his last World Cup, and Argentina arrive as defending champions with him still their captain and their reference point. Nobody needs Messi to prove anything anymore. He is going to try anyway, in the country that has watched him every week for three years at Inter Miami. Watch how Argentina use him, and how long the legs hold up.
Read the full Lionel Messi profile →
2. Cristiano Ronaldo
Portugal · Forward · Al-Nassr
One trophy is missing, and this is the last chance to get it. Ronaldo has won five Ballon d’Ors, five Champions Leagues, and league titles in England, Spain, and Italy, and he is still the all-time leading scorer in men’s international football. What he has never won is a World Cup, and at 41 he has confirmed this is his sixth and final attempt. He is still scoring at better than a goal a game in Saudi Arabia, still Portugal’s captain, still chasing his 1,000th career goal. The question is whether a 41-year-old can carry a tournament for a month, or whether this turns into a farewell lap. Either way, you do not look away from the last one.
Read the full Cristiano Ronaldo profile →
3. Kylian Mbappé
France · Forward · Real Madrid
Mbappé has been the future for so long it is easy to forget what is still missing. He won the World Cup at 19. He scored a hat-trick in the 2022 final and lost it anyway, to Messi, on penalties. Now he is 27, the age by which Messi already had four Ballon d’Ors, and he is France’s captain, and he is closing in on his country’s all-time scoring record. His club season ended early when Real Madrid went out of the Champions League, which has narrowed his case for the 2026 Ballon d’Or to a single thing: how far France go this summer. He has been here as a teenager and as a beaten finalist. The third try decides what kind of career this becomes.
Read the full Kylian Mbappé profile →
4. Jude Bellingham
England · Midfielder · Real Madrid
England keep showing up as one of the favorites and keep going home early, and Jude Bellingham is the player they are now built around. He runs Real Madrid’s midfield, he scores the goals that decide games, and he plays with a seniority that does not match his age. England have not won a World Cup since 1966 and have turned the near-miss into a national tradition. Bellingham is supposed to be the one who finally rewrites the ending. Watch the way he drifts from midfield into the box late. The timing of those arrivals is the whole thing, and it’s what separates him from every other talented English midfielder who came before.
5. Lamine Yamal
Spain · Winger · Barcelona
If you want to watch an era begin, watch Lamine Yamal. He announced himself at Euro 2024 as a teenager and has spent the time since becoming Spain’s most dangerous attacker, all before his nineteenth birthday, which lands in the middle of this tournament. He plays on the right for Barcelona, cuts inside onto his left, and does things that make experienced defenders look like they are guessing. This is his first World Cup, and Spain, the reigning European champions, are good enough to go a long way. The kid is not a prospect anymore. He is a starter on one of the best teams in the field, and he is still getting better.
6. Vinícius Júnior
Brazil · Forward · Real Madrid
Brazil have not won the World Cup since 2002, which by their standards counts as a crisis, and Vinícius Júnior is the player expected to end it. He is electric down Real Madrid’s left, he draws fouls and controversy in roughly equal measure, and he divides opinion like few players in the game: unplayable to some, a provocateur to others. None of that changes the fact that at his best he is nearly impossible to defend one-on-one. Brazil’s whole attack runs through him. If they are going to claim a sixth star, it probably looks like Vinícius beating his man to the byline and cutting it back. Watch the one-on-ones, and watch how he handles the attention that comes with them.
7. Erling Haaland
Norway · Forward · Manchester City
For all the goals, and the numbers are absurd, Erling Haaland has never played at a World Cup, because Norway had not qualified for one since 1998. That ends this summer. He is a different kind of striker: huge, fast, and ruthless inside the box, built to bury the half-chance most forwards waste. At Manchester City he scores at a rate that bends records out of shape. The one thing missing was ever a major-tournament stage to do it on. Now he has it, on the biggest one there is, and a deep Norway run would reshape how this whole stretch of his career gets remembered. Watch what he does with the few clear chances he gets. He has never needed many.
8. Harry Kane
England · Forward · Bayern Munich
Harry Kane scores goals the way other people breathe, and for most of his career that was all he had to show for it: no trophies, just numbers. Then he moved to Bayern Munich and finally started winning things. He is England’s all-time leading scorer and their captain, and at this point the only line left blank on his record is an international trophy. England have the squad; they always seem to. Whether Kane is lifting something in July or fielding the same questions about falling short, he will be at the center of it. Watch him drop deep to start the move, then turn up in the box to finish it. There are few strikers who do both as well.
9. Pedri
Spain · Midfielder · Barcelona
Pedri is the least flashy player on this list and one of the most important. He does not score many or beat three men on the dribble; he just makes Spain work, receiving under pressure, turning, and moving the ball before anyone can close him down. He was central to Spain winning Euro 2024, and the reigning European champions are a genuine contender here. The only thing that has ever stopped him is his own body; injuries have cost him long stretches. If he stays fit, he is the quiet engine of a team that could win the whole thing, and the player you notice most when you finally stop watching the ball and start watching the spaces.
10. Lautaro Martínez
Argentina · Forward · Inter Milan
Somebody has to finish the chances Messi creates, and for Argentina that job belongs to Lautaro Martínez. He captains Inter Milan, he was the top scorer at the 2024 Copa América, and he is the kind of penalty-box striker every champion needs and few actually have. Argentina are defending the title, and while the cameras follow Messi, it is often Lautaro converting the moment that decides the match. He does the unglamorous work: holding the ball up, pressing from the front, getting on the end of things. Watch whether the goals come, because a defending champion lives or dies on its number nine, and this one carries that weight quietly.
11. Achraf Hakimi
Morocco · Right-back · Paris Saint-Germain
In 2022, Morocco became the first African and Arab nation to reach a World Cup semifinal, and Achraf Hakimi was the engine of it. He is a right-back who plays like a winger: overlapping, crossing, scoring, defending almost as an afterthought, and he has spent the last few years winning at the highest level with Paris Saint-Germain, including the Champions League. Morocco’s run in 2022 was written off by some as a fluke. Hakimi and a now-experienced golden generation arrive wanting to prove it was the start of something. Watch the right flank: when Hakimi is flying forward, Morocco are dangerous, and they are nobody’s easy draw.
12. Christian Pulisic
USA · Forward · AC Milan
And do not sleep on the host’s own star. Christian Pulisic is the best player the United States has produced in a generation, he starts for AC Milan in Italy, and he is carrying American hopes into the biggest soccer event this country has ever hosted. A home World Cup is a rare thing. The last one here was in 1994. And, the USMNT will play in front of crowds and pressure no American team has felt before. Pulisic is the name on the shirts, the player opponents game-plan around, the one the whole thing leans on. Whether the US go deep or go out early, he is where the story starts. Watch your own guy.
Read the full Christian Pulisic profile →
Those are the twelve to start with. But the best thing about a World Cup is that it builds its own stars. Every tournament, someone nobody mentioned in May is the name everybody knows by July. A teenager who comes off the bench and changes a game. A goalkeeper who will not be beaten. A player from a team that was not supposed to be here at all. We will be writing about them as it happens. For now, learn these twelve, and let the next five weeks tell you who else to watch. It starts June 11.
