With less than a month to go for the much-anticipated FIFA World Cup 2026, football fanatics are already losing sleep. Who will win the 2026 edition? Who will walk away with the Golden Ball? Who will bag the Golden Gloves award? Which underdog team will outperform a football giant?
Over the next few weeks, conversations will revolve around late-night matches, high-octane drama, tactical debates, and friendships temporarily sacrificed for football loyalties.
In India, fans are ready to bring out their favourite team’s jerseys from the wardrobes. In cities like Kolkata and Malappuram, they have painted the alleys with the images of their childhood favourites, strung countries’ flags across the streets, and unfurled huge tifos on the terraces.
But the 2026 FIFA World Cup has a different ring to it. It feels like a generational transition.
It might be the last World Cup for two football legends — Lionel Messi, 38, and Cristiano Ronaldo, 41. And, football is a sport that has never allowed anybody to dominate for a very long time.
Every edition of the tournament carries its own emotional aura. Sometimes, it is about a host nation desperately trying to prove itself to the world, like South Africa in 2010. Sometimes, it is about tactical revolutions or sheer dominance on the field, like Germany in 2014.
This time, it feels like the emotional handover from the Messi-Ronaldo era to an uncertain new football age — one chapter closing to make way for the beginning of another.
Passing the baton
For almost two decades, Messi and Ronaldo have dominated every football conversation around the world. Entire footballing identities were built around choosing one over the other, and fans defended them to death.
While Messi has already “shaken hands with paradise” in 2022 after lifting the World Cup in Qatar, Ronaldo, despite his staggering achievements, still chases this one elusive trophy. Whether Messi can lift it again or Ronaldo can finally put his hands on the trophy, time will tell.
But while Messi and Ronaldo approach the twilight of their careers, younger stars who grew up idolising their rivalry are arriving at full speed. Spain’s 18-year-old sensation Lamine Yamal represents a generation that plays without fear. Meanwhile, Brazil’s Endrick carries the weight of a footballing nation desperate to reclaim global supremacy. Jude Bellingham (England), Kylian Mbappé (France), Jamal Musiala (Germany) and several others are no longer “future stars”. Now, they are expected to lead their countries from the front.
This World Cup comes up with a difficult equation: “What kind of football will emerge after this tournament?”
The sport is changing rapidly. Football today is faster, more data-driven and commercially overwhelming. Players are global brands before they become veterans. Transfer fees resemble state budgets. Social media ensures that every mistake becomes a meme within seconds. Young footballers now arrive carrying impossible expectations before they even turn 20.
Yet the World Cup still retains an emotional purity that cuts through the noise.
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The beauty of the World Cup
Every edition of the tournament produces picture-perfect moments in our memory — Diego Maradona weaving through England’s defence in 1986, Zinedine Zidane controlling the midfield with elegance in 1998, Andrés Iniesta scoring Spain’s extra-time winner in 2010, Mario Götze chesting the ball down before scoring in 2014, and Messi lifting the trophy in 2022 after Emiliano Martínez produced a jaw-dropping one-on-one save.
For countries like Argentina, Brazil, England, France and Spain, the tournament is about legacy. For smaller footballing nations, it is about visibility, pride and the possibility of becoming the tournament’s great underdog story.
And somewhere in between lies the real beauty of the World Cup. It’s unpredictable. It’s heart-wrenching. It’s unhealthy for friendships. It’s larger than a sport. For two months, football becomes the closest thing to a shared global language.
That is the true magic of the World Cup. It crowns champions. And every four years, it convinces billions of people to believe — if only for a short period of time — that something extraordinary is always one match away.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant Dixit)