The competition for the top scorer award became exciting early.
BY Mahnoor | 20-07-2026
WASHINGTON: The first 48-team World Cup has been exciting and full of interesting stories.
Here are some key points from over five weeks of games in Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
Top experts
The race for the top scorer award started early and stayed interesting until the last weekend.
The top players include famous names like Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, Erling Haaland, and Harry Kane.
Mbappe, who scored two goals in France’s 6-4 loss to England on Saturday in the third-place game, has two more goals than Messi. Only Sunday’s final is left.
The French player is also now the top scorer in World Cup history, with 22 goals in three tournaments, one more than Messi.
Small fish shine
Debutants Cape Verde finished the group stage without losing a single game and moved forward from a group that had former champions Spain and Uruguay.
“To be honest, it feels like I’m in a fairytale,” said Deroy Duarte after his team set up a match against defending champions Argentina in the round of 32.
The African country almost beat Lionel Messi’s team, coming from behind twice, before Argentina scored the winning goal in extra time.
The Caribbean island of Curacao, the smallest country at the World Cup by population, also had a moment of success, holding Ecuador to a 0-0 draw after losing 7-1 to Germany in their first match.
Argentina makes a comeback
Argentina has looked weak many times at the 2026 World Cup, but they always found a way.
The defending champions easily passed their group, but needed extra time to beat Cape Verde, and came back from 2-0 down late in the game against Egypt.
They needed extra time again to beat Switzerland in the quarter-finals and were close to losing against England in the semi-finals before scoring two late goals.
Argentina have not played the smoothest football, but their refusal to give up is their great strength.
Balogun conflict
The World Cup had little trouble off the field until Folarin Balogun became part of a big political problem.
The US forward, who scored three goals, was kicked out of the game in his team’s last-32 match against Bosnia-Herzegovina, so he could not play in the next match.
But FIFA stepped in and stopped his suspension. This caused a lot of criticism, especially when it became known that US President Donald Trump had gotten involved.
The host team was completely beaten 4-1 by Belgium in the round of 16. Balogun did not make much difference.
After that, the 25-year-old said the event had added more stress to the team.
Haaland goes viral
Erling Haaland helped Norway get their best World Cup result ever. He also became famous on social media for his funny posts.
The tall Manchester City striker has gained 30 million Instagram followers since the tournament began, now having over 71 million.
Haaland, 25, whose team was beaten by England in the quarter-finals, now has far more Instagram followers than City’s official account.
One of his posts showed the ‘Viking row’, which will be one of the lasting images of the tournament.
In the ritual, players led Norway fans in a pretend Viking boat, moving together in rhythm.
He also posted a photo of himself returning to Norway with a stuffed raccoon, saying, ‘It followed me home.’
Falklands argument
Before the semi-final between Argentina and England, people mostly talked about the disputed Falkland Islands, called Malvinas in Spanish.
Argentina came back from a 1-0 deficit to win 2-1 and reach their third final in four World Cups.
After the game ended, the players held up a sign that said: ‘The Malvinas are Argentine.’
Britain asked FIFA to investigate the incident, and the organization released a statement saying it was ‘reviewing the match reports.’
Also watch this :
Gold goes down in price even though the world is seeing a big rise in prices.
Leave a comment