Top 10 World Cup 2026 Stars — No.4: Lionel Messi, 38 years old, defending champions, one last time
Lionel Messi turns 39 three days before Argentina's first group match. He is the defending World Cup champion. He is almost certainly playing his last tournament. None of that context is necessary to explain why he is here — the football does that.
The temptation with Messi at this World Cup is to write about endings. About the last dance, the final curtain, the closure of a career so extraordinary that the English language keeps running out of ways to describe it accurately. Resist that temptation for a moment. The endings are true and they matter, but they obscure something more immediate and more important: Lionel Messi, at 38, with the defending world champions, is still good enough to be one of the ten most important players at this tournament.
He turns 39 three days before Argentina's first group match. He plays his club football at Inter Miami in MLS — a league whose quality level does not prepare you for the sustained physical intensity of a World Cup knockout match against France or Spain. These are legitimate questions about his fitness and sharpness. He and Lionel Scaloni have answers to those questions that we have not yet seen tested at this level.
What remains at 38
What Messi retains at 38 is the vision, the touch, and the understanding of space that cannot be diminished by age because it was never primarily physical. The players who rely on pace and athleticism decline in predictable ways. The players who rely on reading the game — on the first touch that buys the half-second, on the pass that arrives at the precise angle that creates the goal — these players can function at the highest level significantly longer, because the brain does not age at the same rate as the body.
He delivered at Qatar
The 2022 World Cup in Qatar was Messi's tournament. Seven matches. Seven goals. Four assists. The penalty in the final. The performance against France in extra time. The trophy lifted at 35 years old after everything the tournament had demanded of him.
The tournament will not see that version again. But it will see a version still capable of the pass that changes a match, the free kick that beats the wall, the moment of composure in a penalty shootout that wins a tournament. Argentina are defending champions. Messi is the reason they became champions. That does not expire on his 39th birthday.
Argentina's defensive questions
The squad around Messi has been altered by injury. Juan Foyth gone. Cristian Romero doubtful. The defensive cover that made Argentina difficult to break down in Qatar is thinner in 2026. But Lautaro Martínez is one of the best strikers in the world. Alexis Mac Allister is one of the best midfielders in Europe. Julián Álvarez is a tournament player — the kind who scores the goals that matter in the moments that matter.
Age: 38 (turns 39 June 24) | Club: Inter Miami | Nation: Argentina
"Thirty-eight years old, defending champion, almost certainly playing his last tournament. The argument about whether he was the greatest is over. The question now is whether there is one more moment — one more pass, one more free kick, one more piece of brilliance that only he could produce. I think there is. I think we will see it. Watch him carefully."
Next in the countdown
No.3 tomorrow — Six World Cups. More than any outfield player in history. The final chapter of the greatest goalscoring career football has ever seen. Forty-one years old. Still here. Number three tomorrow. Back to VivaSportsHQ →
