2026 World Cup: Stars Shine as Underdogs Rise

The 2026 World Cup has finally caught fire. Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, Erling Haaland and now Cristiano Ronaldo have all stamped their names on the tournament, dragging the expanded 48-team format into exactly the kind of spectacle its critics said it couldn’t be.

Cape Verde are swinging above their weight, Japan and Egypt are refusing to bow to reputations, and a string of so‑called minnows have turned the group stage into a minefield. The football is chaotic, compelling, alive.

Watching it all closely is India defender Sandesh Jhingan, part of the Zee5 expert panel, who spoke to Hindustan Times Digital about a World Cup that has become a stage for both the game’s immortals and its next wave.

Messi at 39: making the impossible look routine

Five goals in two games. Hat-tricks, braces, and the same glide past defenders that once belonged to the 20-year-old in Barcelona colours. At 39, Messi should be slowing down. Instead, he’s tearing up the script.

“For an athlete, the hardest thing is not the peak,” Jhingan said. “It’s the consistency. The longevity.”

He lingered on that word. Longevity. The ability to keep doing it at the very top, year after year, when the body starts to argue with the mind.

What strikes him most is not just the numbers but the feeling Messi still produces.

He recalled a moment from the Zee studio. A visual of a 100-year-old woman in the stands, watching Messi. “When you watch Messi, it makes you feel like a kid,” he said. “That 100-year-old lady must have felt like a 10-year-old watching him play. He gives you that kind of joy.”

That, in many ways, is the story of this Argentina side: a veteran genius making everyone in the stadium feel young again, while the team around him does the heavy lifting to keep his magic in the right areas of the pitch.

The wall behind the wizard

Argentina are yet to concede a goal. That statistic is not an accident, nor is it just about rugged defending and last-ditch blocks. Jhingan sees something more sophisticated.

“The reason Messi is doing so well is because the team’s shape and compactness are so good,” he explained.

This is not a side built around a coach’s ego. It’s built around Messi’s gifts.

“The best coaches adapt their tactics around the players they have,” he said. Argentina, in his eyes, are the perfect example.

Sometimes they sit deep. Sometimes they hold a mid-block. But they’re always organised, always prepared.

That platform buys Messi freedom. The defenders and midfielders know the deal: win it, give it to him, let him decide. “They trust that he can create something special,” Jhingan said. That trust seeps through the group. Confidence follows.

Lautaro’s graft and the ‘Messi dependency’ myth

Lautaro Martinez ran himself into the ground against Austria. Dropping in to defend, linking play, making selfless runs across the front line. Yet the noise around Argentina’s forwards persists: not enough goals, too much reliance on Messi.

Jhingan doesn’t buy the panic.

“If I’m an Argentine player or fan, I wouldn’t mind being called reliant on Messi as long as the team is winning,” he said.

Then he sharpened the point: this is not a one-man band.

Argentina, as he sees them, are built on system and structure. Organisation. Defensive discipline. Compactness. They know when to drop off, when to press, how to “hunt the ball together” and how to create the right conditions for Messi and the other attackers to finish the job.

They’re winning. They’re through to the next stage. For Jhingan, that’s the only verdict that matters. And much of the praise, he insists, belongs to the coaching staff who have made sure every player understands his role.

Mbappe and the weight of a new standard

On the other side of the draw, Mbappe keeps doing what Mbappe does at World Cups: score, explode into space, and drag France forward when the stakes rise.

“With his goals and his numbers, it’s incredible,” Jhingan said.

Mbappe is still only in his late twenties, but his World Cup résumé already looks outrageous. The temptation is to rush him into the pantheon, to place him alongside Messi and Ronaldo.

Jhingan resists that shortcut. “How do you put him in that bracket?” he asked. Messi and Ronaldo, he pointed out, are the standard. Two decades of relentless excellence. That is the bar.

Mbappe, though, has everything required to chase it. “He has all the credentials, all the qualities,” Jhingan said. The question now is not about talent. It’s about staying motivated, staying fit, and sustaining this level for years.

One thing, in his mind, is already clear: when the World Cup arrives, Mbappe changes gear. “Whenever the World Cup is there, that guy just brings an extra level,” he said, recalling 2018 and 2022. That, to him, is the mark of a truly big player.

Lamine Yamal and the nightmare of the one-on-one

If Mbappe is the established force, Lamine Yamal is the fresh chaos. The teenager doesn’t always start, doesn’t always finish games, but every time he steps onto the pitch, something happens.

From a defender’s eye, Jhingan knows exactly how terrifying that is.

“If you’re in a one-on-one situation with Lamine, most of the time he’s going to get past you,” he admitted.

That’s his biggest quality: the instinct to take you on, again and again. He’s the kind of player you pay to watch.

But Jhingan is quick to warn defenders against turning it into a personal duel. That, he said, is the trap.

“You can defend a striker or winger perfectly for 90 minutes, but one shot, one deflection, and the headlines say he won the battle.” The job, as he frames it, is not to win every tackle. It’s to reduce the number of times you’re exposed.

Keep the team compact. Limit the spaces he receives the ball in. Cut the supply line. That means coordinated pressing from midfield and forwards, and a high, brave defensive line behind them. Lamine will still get chances. The aim is to make sure they’re fewer and less dangerous.

Ronaldo, the bench debate, and the view from the dressing room

Ronaldo’s World Cup has arrived with its own familiar storm. Goals at club level, goals in qualifiers, but questions about his age, his mobility, his place in the starting XI. Should he be benched?

Jhingan didn’t tiptoe around it.

“I’m going to give a bold statement,” he said. “All this debate is from the ones who never played professional football, or who never played much of it professionally.”

Opinions are fine. But for him, there is one voice that matters: the head coach.

“If he thinks he’s good enough, he will play.” Simple as that.

Ronaldo, like Messi, carries a different kind of spotlight. Every game becomes a referendum. If he doesn’t score, the conversation turns instantly to age, to decline, to whether he should step aside. The goals in Saudi Arabia, the goals in qualifiers – “people tend to forget that and just pinpoint,” Jhingan said.

He expects a response. He believes this is exactly the kind of noise Ronaldo has spent a career silencing.

Golden Boot race: giants only

So who finishes as the tournament’s top scorer?

Jhingan sees a familiar battle forming. “I think it could be between Messi and Mbappe,” he said. It’s early – just two games in – but Messi already has a “very healthy lead” with five.

Haaland is in the frame as well. The trio many wanted to see dominating the scoresheets are doing exactly that. And Jhingan suspects Ronaldo is about to join them, predicting the Portugal captain will “open his account in a big way” and, once again, use doubt as fuel.

“More goals, more fun, more excitement,” he said. For neutrals, it’s a dream: the sport’s biggest names trading punches for the Golden Boot on the game’s grandest stage.

Backing Japan, and a quiet hope for Asia

When the conversation shifts to potential champions, Jhingan doesn’t hide his bias.

“I’m going to be biased. I’m going to root for Japan,” he said, almost laughing at himself.

Argentina are obvious contenders, he acknowledged, but his heart is with Asia. He wants Japan to go “as high as they can”.

It’s a choice that fits this World Cup’s early story. A tournament where Cape Verde can rattle giants, where Japan can go toe-to-toe with anyone, where Egypt and others are shredding the old hierarchies.

The legends are still writing their last great chapters. Messi at 39. Ronaldo under siege. Mbappe chasing history. Haaland hunting goals. Lamine Yamal announcing himself.

But somewhere in that noise, as Jhingan watches from the studio, an Asian team might just be preparing to gatecrash the party.