2026 World Cup winners and losers: Spain dominated, while the U.S. crashed out in controversy

July 22, 2026 WOL

With the World Cup now in the rear view, it’s time to take stock of what happened throughout the first 48-team tournament. Here are our winners and losers from the marathon tournament that ended Sunday with Spain’s victory over Argentina.

Winners

Spain

It’s far from shocking that the winner of the World Cup headlines our group of winners from the tournament. But it’s hard to find enough superlatives for the way Spain played throughout the tournament.

Belgium‘s Charles De Ketelaere was the only player to score a goal against Spain. His first-half quarterfinal goal broke Spain’s shutout streak before La Roja went on to start another one. Neither France nor Argentina found the back of the Spanish net in the final two rounds.

It was also truly a team performance. In a tournament dominated by attacking stars, defensive midfielder Rodri showed why he’s back to being the best in the world at that position and won the Golden Ball trophy for best player. Teenage winger Lamine Yamal showed flashes, but he clearly wasn’t fully recovered from his spring hamstring injury. And Nico Williams, Spain’s other starting winger, was also relegated to a bench role because of injury.

Spain has now won back-to-back major tournaments under coach Luis de la Fuente and hasn’t lost a competitive game under his watch.

Yes, Messi and Argentina failed to win a fourth consecutive major tournament and couldn’t match Brazil in 1958 and 1962 as back-to-back World Cup champions as they were thoroughly outclassed by Spain in the final.

However, it’s hard to consider what Messi and Argentina did a disappointment. Messi became the first player to start three different World Cup finals and showed why he’s still one of the best players in the world across the entirety of the event. He opened the World Cup with his first hat trick in the tournament as he became the first player to appear in six different World Cups.

Oh, he also went toe-to-toe with Kylian Mbappé for the Golden Boot.

Would it have been storybook for Messi to win his final World Cup? Of course. But assuming this was the 39-year-old’s final appearance, he went out with yet another fantastic performance.

Kylian Mbappé

Just how many World Cup goals will Mbappé score? After chasing Messi for the all-time record for much of the tournament, Mbappé won the Golden Boot and passed Messi for the career goals record in France’s third-place loss to England.

At just 27 years old, Mbappé has scored 22 World Cup goals and also has the most goals of anyone in the knockout rounds. It’s hard to think of any current player who will come close to matching Mbappé’s total, especially if he plays in two more World Cups.

Yes, France’s final two games were a disaster — more on that in a bit. But Mbappé is still years away from being 30 and is already the most prolific attacker in World Cup history.

The third-smallest nation to play at the World Cup became the smallest nation to make the knockout rounds after a 0-0 tie with Saudi Arabia to end group play.

The reward for advancing past the group stage was a Round of 32 game against Argentina — and a matchup where Cape Verde was a massive underdog.

It hardly played like one.

Cape Verde pushed Argentina to the brink, and Sidny Lopes Cabral‘s golazo in extra time is one of the best goals in recent World Cup history. An own goal just a few minutes later officially ended Cape Verde’s dreams in a 3-2 loss.

If you somehow weren’t captivated by Cape Verde and goalie Vozinha after the group stage, it was impossible not to be after the loss to Argentina. Cape Verde and Austria were the only two teams to play both Argentina and Spain in the World Cup. Austria lost by a combined 5-0. Cape Verde was tied with both at the end of regulation.

Norway got some heat for resting its starters ahead of its loss to France to end the group stage. The game was for first place in Group I, and the winner received a more favorable draw in the knockout rounds.

That didn’t matter at all to Norway. The strategy clearly worked out. With a fresh starting lineup, Norway and Erling Haaland took down Ivory Coast in the Round of 32 and Haaland scored twice as Norway eliminated Brazil from the World Cup.

The Norwegians then pushed England to the brink, as the Three Lions needed extra time to advance to the semifinals. Haaland showed why he’s the most well-rounded striker in the world in his first World Cup appearance, and there’s no doubt that Norway will be back again in 2030.

Losers

United States

The quarterfinals were the standard for the United States at this tournament. There was little excuse for the U.S. to not watch its best World Cup result while playing every game on home soil.

But losing to Belgium in the Round of 16 after a mess unfolded before the match is especially painful, even if it wasn’t of the team’s own making. President Donald Trump’s push to get Folarin Balogun reinstated — whether it was the actual impetus for Balogun’s reinstatement or not — will forever mar the tournament and future FIFA decisions for years to come.

Even if you believe political meddling has been happening for years at FIFA, for it to happen so openly about an on-field decision is beyond brazen. There are plenty of people who think the USMNT got what it deserved in Belgium‘s thrashing.

The Germans at least made it out of the group stage this year. But is that really an achievement when two-thirds of the field advanced to the knockout rounds?

Germany was one-and-done in the knockout rounds, too, thanks to a shootout loss to Paraguay. It was the first time the Germans had ever lost a World Cup match in PKs and also meant Germany hasn’t won a knockout-round game at the World Cup since winning the tournament in 2014.

The rebuild is officially on after the loss too. Julian Naglesmann was quickly ousted as the team’s coach and replaced by former Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp. After helping Liverpool break its Premier League title drought, Klopp now has to get Germany back to being capable of winning a World Cup.

France

Making three consecutive World Cup finals is really, really difficult. But the way France fell short of another appearance in the final was disastrous.

The team was thoroughly dominated in midfield in its 2-0 semifinal loss to Spain. France’s strength in the previous two World Cups had been an organized and talented midfield that could set up Mbappé on the break. With a much weaker group in 2026, France’s overwhelming attack became the team’s focal point.

That worked … until it didn’t. France had no answer for Spain’s possession and structure in the semifinals and seemingly played without a midfield in the third-place game to England.

England went up 4-0 as there was a cavernous gap between France’s forwards and its back line. It’s a testament to how good Mbappé, Michael Olise, Ousmane Dembélé and others are that France got back into the game in the second half, but two more goals from England in the 6-4 defeat was ultimately Les Bleus‘ undoing.

In a World Cup filled with star performances from Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé, Erling Haaland and Harry Kane, among others, Ronaldo’s career ended with a whimper.

Sure, he scored a brace against Uzbekistan and got his first knockout round goal in a win over Croatia. But that goal came from the penalty spot and Ronaldo was subbed off before Portugal got its game-winner.

The 41-year-old was far too often a non-factor in his final World Cup and his performance combined with Messi’s continued dominance makes it clear the debate between Ronaldo and Messi has an undisputed winner. And no, that winner is not Ronaldo.

Brazil seems just as far from being a real contender as Germany. The Round of 16 loss to Norway wasn’t a fluky upset; Norway dominated the game and was better in the middle of the field.

The appointment of longtime manager Carlo Ancelotti didn’t immediately fix Brazil’s midfield fragility. Pre-tournament injuries to Rodrigo and Éder Militão weakened the squad, but neither play midfield. Casemiro was called upon to do too much throughout the whole tournament, and he was often overstretched no matter who he was partnered with.

Ancelotti is contracted through the 2030 World Cup. There will be a lot of squad turnover in the next four years, as the Neymar era is officially over and 30-something players like Marquinhos, Casemiro and even Alisson won’t be back for the next World Cup. With so many attacking riches to pick from, the top priority for Ancelotti will be to build a reliable midfield that comes close to resembling the ones that powered Brazil’s World Cup winners.

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