6 min readJun 28, 2026 10:09 AM IST
It’s about the goals, yet it’s not only about the goals. Four colossal figures of the game – Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland, each distinct from the other – are locked in a golden boot race for the ages. Yet, the wider meaning, the symbolism, is different for each, and intertwined with personal glory, identity, legacy and pure enjoyment, along the journey that takes them to the ultimate destination. The World Cup.
Lionel Messi leads the race, with six strikes in three games. Messi-26 is different from all previous iterations of his. Here is Messi with the crown, over his burnishing halo, liberated from the shadows of Diego Maradona, and gliding with joie de vivre. From 17 to 34, he played with a crushing burden in his heart, the love and loyalty for the country on the line, his greatness in the Argentine stripes a debate that never ended. He settled it all in Qatar, and in the US, he has reacquainted with the Messi that he lost when he made his first steps on the World Cup stage two decades ago.
Messi curls the free-kick around the Jordan wall for his 19th World Cup goal. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
This version is perhaps the most dangerous, when he walks with a free mind, when he is not smothered by the weight of the world’s expectations, when the critics are not waiting for half a mistake, when he is purely soaking in the moments that he perhaps failed to enjoy fully. Yet, he has not overstayed, the wit and wisdom, vision and intuition remain untarnished. No one perhaps sees the game as he sees it, stripped to its essentials, trimmed of its flourishes, football as a game of chess, of floating spaces and pieces. A title defence would make Argentina the only team that has retained the trophy since Pele in 1962. But Messi would not pile an unsolicited burden on himself.
Nothing would provoke him—not the heir designates pushing to dethrone him and seize the sceptre, not his great rival pushing him into another duel to settle the greatest debate. The paths of Messi and Ronaldo were never meant to converge again, but here they are, from wunderkinds to fierce competitors that defined this century, and now to two middle-aged men resisting the passage of time. Ronaldo is 41, two years older than Messi, and he would feel the ticking seconds more acutely than Messi would. Not in the physical sense, but in how his biggest dream is slipping away from him.
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Winning the World Cup is no longer about winning what Messi has won; it’s not about legacies or inheritances, or stacking his mantelpiece with the only missing trophy. It could be about peace of mind, of sleeping with the trophy that has given him sleepless nights. He never felt the pressures Messi suffered in his pursuit of the World Cup, the shadows of past greats or the nearly games. The only shadow on Ronaldo is Ronaldo himself, the Ronaldo that refuses to leave without the last dome of gold that football can offer him. He would consider himself a failure if he leaves the stage without the crown, without engineering his country’s first World Cup triumph.
For all the goals, trophies and individual awards, he knows his line to be remembered forever—the man that brought the World Cup to Portugal. He might not do it alone, as he would have dared in his magnificent youth. His spirit remained unconquered, although the athleticism has diminished. His biggest inspiration would be his biggest rival, Messi and how he did it in Qatar. He is still behind in the race, but only in numbers. In spirit, he always exists. In a tournament lit up by braces, it could take just a game for him to surpass all.
Ronaldo reacts after missing a chance during the World Cup Group K match against Colombia in Miami Gardens. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
The World Cups have been unkind to Ronaldo. Six of them have mustered him only 10 goals. His spiritual successor in Real Madrid, Kylian Mbappe has already 16 in three editions. A goal-scoring behemoth has already risen, and the numbers he would end up dizzying. For him, it wouldn’t be about numbers, but regaining the paradise he lost. He was only 18 when he won the World Cup in Russia, in his maiden tournament. He was 22 when he netted a hat-trick in the final, inspiring the greatest comeback in the tournament’s history. At 26, he needs a World Cup to ascertain that he is the world’s best player. For eight years, he has been in the vicinity of this peak, but has stumbled at the final summit.
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Mbappe is arguably the best player in the world, but he needs a blockbuster World Cup to reestablish his image, to revitalise himself and break away from the pack of pretenders after his fluctuating season with Real Madrid. If he could inspire France to another triumph, it could chart his path from being talked about as a generational great to an all-time great. At a ludicrous age of 26.
Erling Haaland is only a year younger than him, and could be his biggest challenger to the throne of greatness. But his purpose is to give Norway, returning to the global tournament after 32 years, an identity that they are an emerging powerhouse, that they are no longer the tough losers, that they could vie for trophies in future. The goals they score would define them and their teams, decide the winner of the golden booty and perhaps the World Cup’s destination. But it is a race with wider meanings, like it is a play within a play. Or several plays within a play.