Ken Early
Best Match: Argentina v Egypt was incredible, but England v Argentina had an extra level of loathing and tension that elevated the whole game.
Best Goal – Lionel Messi (Argentina v Egypt): To strike the ball that calmly and cleanly as he’s being charged down by opponents, at a moment when Argentina absolutely needed that ball to go in. He knew himself how big it was. He’s scored 924 goals for club and country and his celebration for this one was as crazy as I’ve ever seen from him.
Best Player: Lionel Messi.
World Cup highlight: The happiest I felt at any game during this tournament was under the big sky at the beautiful Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City as Messi scored a hat-trick against Algeria.
RM Block
World Cup lowlight: Fifa’s contempt for the sport of which it is supposed to be the guardian. The quarterly ad breaks, the Balogun affair – a governing body that respected football could not have done these things.
If I could change one thing: For the Republic of Ireland to have qualified. We lost to the Czech Republic, who were one of the worst teams of the 48. With no evidence, I believe we would have done better than them.
Team of the Tournament: Vozinha; Rice, Lopes, Laporte, Cucurella; Rodri, Enzo Fernandez; Olise; Messi, Haaland, Mbappé.
Not a great tournament for right-backs, so let’s throw England’s temporary one Declan Rice a bone since we are preferring Michael Olise to Jude Bellingham at number 10. Bellingham scored more goals, but Olise “has more football in him”, as Graeme Souness would say. Cucurella’s an easy choice at left-back. Rodri was the outstanding central midfielder, Enzo has come through at big moments for Argentina, so we’ll have him over Fabian Ruiz. Pico Lopes partners Aymeric Laporte for getting a clean sheet against Spain, Vozinha for his saves and charisma. The front three picks itself.
Malachy Clerkin
Best Match: Argentina’s 3-2 win over Egypt had everything. Egypt were fantastic, comfortably walking themselves into a 2-0 lead. Their disallowed breakaway goal was one of the talking points of the whole tournament. And then Lionel Messi just took over for the last 20 minutes to will Argentina through. One of the greatest ever World Cup games.
Best Goal – Kerim Alajbegovic (Bosnia & Herzegovina v Qatar): An absolute stunner from the 18-year-old Bosnian winger to open the scoring against Qatar. Cutting in from the left, he picked up the ball around 35 yards out, weaved his way around two leggy tackles before lashing a right-foot shot just inside the post. Pick it out.
Best Player: Not the most original pick, granted, but it’s very hard to deny Messi since he has done more to haul Argentina through the tournament than was even the case four years ago. Set the tone with a hat-trick in the opening game, scored that beauty against Cape Verde, saved them against Egypt and England. All at the age of 39. Astonishing, really.
World Cup highlight: Just being reminded, once again, that there’s nothing on the planet like a World Cup. If the aliens come and they’re wondering whether to let us survive as a species or blow us to oblivion, show them the World Cup. For one month every four years, it’s everything that’s good (and bad) about sport, about nations and cultures, about shared humanity. What do we do now?
World Cup lowlight: The flipside, of course, is that never has the power of the World Cup been more attractive to the grasping yahoos who run it. They haven’t got to breaking point with it yet – 48 teams may well become 64, we probably haven’t seen the end of the hydration breaks, and the rule of law has been undermined by the Balogun shambles.
If I could change one thing: Obviously, it’s Gianni Infantino. He spent years cosying up to Donald Trump and got nothing in return, except to be shown up on the world stage when the Yanks didn’t like a refereeing decision. He insisted he had to be shown on TV in every game, like some god of the sport, as opposed to some no-mark Swiss lawyer. His ridiculousness will surely catch up with him eventually.
Team of the Tournament: Simon; Porro, Saliba, Martinez, Cucurella; Rodri, Enzo Fernandez; Mbappé, Messi, Bellingham; Haaland.
Mary Hannigan
Best Match: Argentina and Belgium’s comebacks against Egypt and Senegal, respectively, were up there, the drama of Mexico v England not too shabby either, but nothing could beat the pure unadulterated – and jaw-dropping – magic of World Cup debutants Cape Verde putting it up to reigning champions Argentina in the Round of 32. Twice they trailed, twice they drew level, and if it wasn’t for Emiliano Martinez, they might even have taken it to penalties. An extra-time own goal did for them in the end, but they went down with a glorious, fearless fight.
Best Goal – Sidny Lopes Cabral (Cape Verde v Argentina): It was a mere three years ago that Cabral was playing in Germany’s fifth division, and here he was on the world stage scoring a worldy of a curler into the top-right corner to equalise against, of all people, Argentina. And no one looked more stunned than himself as he went, Wimbledon-style, in search of his girlfriend in the stands to celebrate. Maybe there were better goals, in a technical sense, but surely none as joyous?
Best Player: Not the most imaginative of picks, and he had spells in games when he looked his age – a rusty old 39 – but there’s still no sight quite like Lionel Messi on a football pitch. The manner in which he controlled a Lisandro Martinez ball over the top with the outside of his left foot before jabbing it over Vozinha in the game against Cape Verde? Ah stop.
World Cup highlight: The performances of the nations we assumed might get battered, among them Cape Verde and DR Congo. Best of all was their ambition and how they attacked mightier opponents with confidence – hallelujah, not a sliver of bus-parking to be seen.
World Cup lowlight: Everything about Gianni Infantino’s very existence, but specifically that unbanning of Folarin Balogun. Belgium’s coach Rudi Garcia wasn’t alone in thinking it was a belated April Fool’s gag.
If I could change one thing: Revert to a 32-team tournament. This one just went on for far too long, and most of the players looked utterly drained in the closing stages – and injury-prone as a result. Infantino’s talk of a 64-team World Cup should be enough to have him marched off to The Hague.
Team of the Tournament: Simón; Hakimi, Cubarsi, Upamecano, Cucurella; Rodri, Bellingham; Olise, Messi, Mbappé; Kane.
Gavin Cooney
Best Match: As is usually the case, the group phase fizzed with incident and energy before tension stilted the knockout rounds. But for the second-straight World Cup, Argentina’s operatics have been irresistible, so I’ll pick Argentina’s 3-2 win over Egypt, with Argentina’s win over Cape Verde second, and probably Argentina/Switzerland in third.
Best Goal – Lionel Messi (Argentina v Cape Verde): I assume Sidney Lopes Cabral’s screamer in the same game has been a popular pick, given it was so unlikely. But Messi’s goal gets my vote because he was the only player at the tournament capable of scoring it.
Best Player: Kylian Mbappé, Jude Bellingham, Erling Haaland, and Rodri all have claims here, but come on, it’s Messi. It’s always Messi.
World Cup highlight: Forgive me for repeating myself, but honestly, I have never known anything better in football than watching Lionel Messi. He is the only player in my memory who no longer impacts matches, but sanctifies them. This last act of his career is lengthy, but his narrowed physical limits have only accentuated his genius.
World Cup lowlight: The lifting of Folarin Balogun’s suspension after Donald Trump put in a phone call to Fifa traduced the World Cup and will forever stand out in the event’s competitive field of enduring infamy.
If I could change one thing: Gianni Infantino. And he can take his hydration breaks with him.
Team of the Tournament: Simon; Porro; Cubarsi, Romero, Cucurella; Rodri, Bellingham, Olise; Messi, Haaland, Mbappé. Best of luck convincing that team to defend, mind.
Keith Duggan
Best Match: Prior to the semi-finals, it seemed like nothing could eclipse Belgium’s 3-2 comeback against Senegal, the controversial, VAR-defining conclusion to the 2-1 Portugal/Croatia elimination game, or the limitless heroics of Cape Verde’s 3-2 loss to Argentina.
But the Argentina-England semi-final carried a unique historic weight, controversy, and human drama. The searing conclusion was made all the more thrilling, and terrible, because it was obvious that England were mortally wounded and the South Americans would, once again, beat time itself and live another day. It felt like one of those all-time World Cup moments of which the images will become emblematic of an era. The fact that England’s German coach was cast as the central figure in the drama has added to the intrigue.
Best Goal – Mostafa Zico (Argentina v Egypt): It’s tempting to settle on that second goal against England, given the magnitude of the moment and Lionel Messi’s cold clarity of thought when the watching world – and the England team – was in meltdown. Realising that Jed Spence was hobbling, because Messi had trodden on his foot seconds earlier, he attacked the England defender before delivering an exquisite cross over a forest of burly English defenders. Lautaro Martinez timed his jump perfectly, but there was the sense that Messi could have instructed his team-mate to stand rigidly still and he’d ricochet a goal off his forehead.
But Egypt’s second goal against Argentina, finished by Mostafa Zico in the 67th minute after a thrilling end-to-end counterattack, was all the more outrageous given that it mirrored Zico’s disallowed goal from a few minutes earlier. Argentina were still 2-0 down after 78 minutes; they have lived so dangerously in this World Cup. Egypt’s justifiably embittered exiting remarks drew a close to a riveting game.
Best Player: Regardless of the result in Sunday’s final, it’s impossible to look beyond Messi. He has become the story of the tournament. Any suspicion that he would, at 39 and wintering in Miami, be a diminished figure, dissolved with his hat-trick in Kansas City. Since then, he has both masterminded and orchestrated a series of improbable escapes through the knockout rounds. Having stepped out of the trans equatorial shadow of Diego Maradona four years ago, he has had the time of his football life in the USA. He is close to a living saint for Argentina. For neutrals, it can mean conflicting emotions. The on-field histrionics and cunning of the Argentinian team can be hard to take, but it’s impossible not to root for someone attempting to create a masterpiece.
World Cup highlight: The 2026 World Cup belonged to the minor, or more obscure, American cities. The United States celebrated its 250th year of existence during the World Cup. There was much baritone solemn reflection about democracy, about the immigrant story and about the diversity of the country, during a period when the sitting administration is operating a thinly disguised nativist policy.
The major cities of the United States are, in the cliche, a melting pot. But huge swathes of the country are dominated by the monocultural neon-and-landscape sweep of Americana. So for cities like Kansas, like Seattle, like Atlanta, the arrival of European and South American visitors brought the language and sound and news of other cultures. It made the citizens of those cities feel nationally relevant in a way they often struggle to from year to year. And during the determinedly narrow view of the world advanced by the Trump administration, the football carnival reminded many thousands of Americans that there’s a big world beyond their continent.
World Cup lowlight: For three weeks, the tournament rumbled cheerfully along. It’s gone unremarked but the organisation and good cheer of the US volunteers in every city was something else. And then came Folarin Balogun’s controversial red card against Bosnia and Herzegovina in San Francisco. The US had to face Belgium, a top-10 ranked team, without their prolific forward. But, they had a cause. Trump intervened, at first privately and then publicly, and Fifa issued a dodgy reprieve. It tainted the occasion and undoubtedly contributed to the most tentative and underwhelming USA performance of the tournament, exiting with a 4-1 defeat.
If I could change one thing: Technically two things, but they are connected. Dynamic pricing for tickets is a heist perpetrated on the public. It’s an American phenomenon; a national acceptance that you’ve got to pay what the market dictates. But it meant that the chance to experience the tournament first-hand was above the threshold of many millions of fans whose national teams were making a rare appearance in their adopted cities. The $15-billion revenue generation set a new record for Fifa, but may also set a precedent for pricing at future tournaments.
With all that easy money comes the fading sports star carousel, led by Tom Brady and David Beckham. While it may not have aired in Ireland, let the record show that James Cordon, the indefatigable English comic, aired a late-night post-match jocular talkshow. To stumble on it was to feel a little sadder about the human race.
Team of the Tournament: Simon; Porro, Upamecano, Laporte, Cucurella; Rodri, Fernandez, Bellingham; Messi, Mbappé, Haaland.
Gavin Cummiskey
Best Match: Argentina’s semi-final win over England. How to blow a 1-0 lead. Thomas Tuchel claimed during the panic-stricken 15 minutes after Anthony Gordon’s goal England allowed too many crosses into their box, inferring the collapse was not his fault. The mentality monsters of the Azteca waved the white flag, abandoning possession before Tuchel made a bad situation worse by replacing his left winger Gordon with a centre half, Ezri Konsa. Lionel Messi was delighted to be gifted so much space off the right to conjure both Argentina goals.
Best goal – Lionel Messi (Argentina v Egypt): Messi’s late equaliser against Egypt in the Round of 16. No back lift, perfect technique on the half volley. Erling Haaland’s daisy cutter to sink Brazil is a close second, but Argentina’s recovery from 2-0 down in Atlanta still feels unreal. So desperate was the situation that the 39-year-old morphed into Barcelona Messi, sprinting and slipping tackles like it was 2011.
Best player: Kylian Mbappé was magnificent until the semi-final when Rodri and Dani Olmo took the ball away from France, but it was Messi – the minimalist Maradona – who had the greatest impact on winning matches.
World Cup highlight: Cape Verde’s draw against Spain in the opening Group H match was inspired by a heroic defensive shift from Pico Lopes. As the Spanish produced the performance of the tournament to eliminate France, Pico was back in Tallaght leading Shamrock Rovers past Maltese side Floriana in a Champions League qualifier.
World Cup lowlight: The Czech Republic making South Africa look half decent. The team that denied Ireland and Denmark a place at the World Cup produced three abject performances in the group stages.
If I could change one thing: Fifa president Gianni Infantino being forced to fall on his pen after Donald Trump admitted to influencing the suspension of Folarin Balogun’s red card.
Team of the Tournament: Simon; Porro, Cubarsi, Laporte, Cucurella; Rodri, Ruiz; Yamal, Olmo, Baena; Oyarzabal.
Paul Howard
Best match: Portugal and Colombia produced one of the most exciting, end-to-end, goalless games I’ve ever seen at a World Cup. But Argentina v Egypt will be the one match from this World Cup that I will remember in 20 years. Egypt were well worth their 2-0 lead and Argentina looked dead on the floor until Lionel Messi led the comeback, which was capped by Enzo Fernandez’s injury time winner.
Best goal – Eldor Shormurodov (Uzbekistan v DR Congo): We’ve been spoiled for edge-of-the-box net-busters in this World Cup and it’s too hard to choose between them. My favourite goal was Eldor Shormurodov’s against DR Congo. Taking the lead in their first ever World Cup match was as good as it got for the team. The captain showed brilliant skill to lob the ball over goalkeeper Lionel Mpasi from a difficult angle.
Best player: Lionel Messi had the most big moments, Kylian Mbappé had the best highlight reel, but Rodri was the Player of the Tournament for me. He pulled the strings for Spain like the Rodri of old. The control that Spain have showed right the way through the tournament has been largely down to him, and he ruled the midfield when Spain beat favourites France in the semi-final.
World Cup highlight: Seeing Cape Verde make it through to the knockout stages and giving Argentina a scare. And watching Lionel Messi’s every touch of the ball.
World Cup lowlight: Fifa bowing to pressure from the White House to cancel US striker Folarin Balogun’s red card-suspension to allow him to play against Belgium. It was corruption happening in plain sight.
If I could change one thing: The hydration breaks, or rather the quarter-time commercial breaks, which is what they really are. Back when the US bid for 1994 World Cup, they floated the idea of splitting matches into advertising-friendly quarters and hosting a Superbowl-style halftime show during the final. They were told no. It wasn’t their game to play around with. Thirty years later, a weak-minded Fifa president let them have their way. The ad breaks had nothing to do with player welfare and determined the outcome of way too many matches.
Team of the tournament: Simon; Porro, Cubarsi, Romero, Cucurella; Rodri, Paredes; Mbappé, Bellingham, Olise; Messi.
David Gorman
Best Match: Argentina’s 3-2 win over Cape Verde. With an 11-pm kick-off on a Friday night in peak summer, Cape Verde the lovable underdogs with the Pico Lopes v Messi sideplot. Lisandro Martinez scored in extra-time and everyone was ready for bed, but Sidney Lopes Cabral curled in a stunner from just outside the box. Argentina won the game, but Cape Verde won hearts.
Best goal – Wilson Isidor (Haiti v Morocco): Already eliminated, Haiti’s match against Morocco may not have been the most watched of the tournament, but the Sunderland winger gave the Caribbean nation a moment to remember with a brilliant strike from outside the box. As pure a strike of the ball as you’ll see anywhere.
Best Player: It was close between Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi until the semi-finals, when Mbappé struggled to inflict his game on an impressive Spain while Messi once more led Argentina’s comeback win against England. At 39 years old, the Argentinian can’t run like he once did, but his game awareness and ability to strike when his country needs him is sensational.
World Cup highlight: Although only one African side made the quarter-finals, African countries helped make the knockout stages so compelling. Seven of those nine sides were winning or drawing their last 32 game with 85 minutes played. The fact only two progressed to the Round of 16 is a story for another day, but they were involved in many of the best games of the tournament confirming Africa is a growth area in world football.
World Cup lowlight: The American-ification of the World Cup. While most of the pageantry is relatively harmless, Fifa created a four-quarter game with the hydration breaks, and there was no doubt the ads during those breaks were real reason. A half-hour half-time show for the final changes the dynamic of the sport’s biggest match.
If I could change one thing: Bring back 32 teams, or failing that, 64. The third-team-goes-through system led to an unfair advantage to teams in later groups, creating situations like Algeria v Austria where both teams knew the exact result they needed. Sixteen, 32, or 64-team tournaments are neat formats – two in, two out – and far preferable to having 24 or 48 teams.
Team of the Tournament: Simon, Porro, Cubarsi, Romero, Cucurella; Rodri, Enzo Fernandez, Bellingham; Messi, Haaland, Mbappé.
Dave Hannigan
Best Match: Some of France’s football was sumptuous and then watching Paraguay stifle them by fair means and foul was a different kind of gripping. For me though, it has to be Cape Verde v Argentina. Aside from the presence and performance of Pico Lopes adding greatly to local interest, there was a time late on in that Round of 32 encounter when the champions were on the rack and the African minnows genuinely looked the only ones to have the energy and verve to go deeper into the competition.
Best Goal – Pedro Porro (Spain v France): Quite a few long-distance contenders, especially Sidny Lopes Cabral from the game mentioned above. But Pedro Porro’s clincher against France in the semis was something of a different stripe. Aside from the perfectly executed one-two, and the striker’s finish by a defender, there was the 57 seconds of possession, control and movement. A build-up that captured the Spanish philosophy. As Porro starts running, some of the French players stand still and watch as if mesmerised.
Best Player: The head says Rodri for his return to form at the most crucial time for his country after a season when so many of us thought he was a fading force. The heart, of course, says Messi, because the game is about moments of wonder, cameos of brilliance that we cherish for decades after. I’m sure the post-tournament coaches’ symposium will gush over Rodri’s metronomic passing and his supreme bossing of midfield, but a 39-year-old Messi unfurling an inch-perfect cross with his weaker foot in the 93rd minute of a semi-final will live a lot longer in the memory.
World Cup highlight: At half-time in England v Argentina, we left our television-free, Wi-Fi-challenged log cabin in the Adirondack Mountains. By the time we pulled in to Bolton Landing on the shores of Lake George, Anthony Gordon had scored. Bizarrely, the bar we found was a sea of white England shirts, so we quietly sat in a corner and waited for Messi to take his course. We cheered the goals so lustily that a Londoner came up to congratulate us after the game thinking we were Argentinians.
World Cup lowlight: Watching Neymar make an utter fool of himself with his consolation penalty and subsequent “The Big I AM” celebration in the face of Norway’s Ørjan Nyland. Sad and pathetic. He has made such a mess of the second half of his career that it’s easy to forget how good he was alongside Messi and Suarez at Barcelona, and what more he might have achieved had he made better choices. The parable of the modern celebrity footballer.
If I could change one thing: I was going to opt for television producers cutting away for a crowd shot far too often at crucial points in games when you want to see player reactions. Of possibly more importance is the recurring tendency of serious nations to arrive at tournaments with talented squads underserved by mediocre managers. Roberto Martinez’ disgraceful kowtowing to Ronaldo was the most obvious instance, but the Netherlands and Germany also wasted great opportunities by going in with Ronald Koeman and Julian Nagelsmann.
Team of the Tournament: Vozinha; Upamecano, Cubarsi, Cucurella; Rodri, Olmo, Bouaddi, Enzo Fernandez; Haaland, Messi, Mbappé.
World Cup Wallchart
