Kylian Mbappé is playing this World Cup on the most cleverly structured contract in European football: a five-year Real Madrid deal (through June 2029) whose reported €31.25 million base salary is only the visible layer, sitting atop a signing bonus reported between €100-150 million amortized across the contract, performance incentives, and the negotiation’s real masterstroke, … Read more
Kylian Mbappé has scored 20 goals in 20 World Cup matches, a goal-per-game pace no player in the tournament’s 96-year history has sustained, and he is 27 years old and exactly one goal behind the all-time record after breaking the deadlock against Morocco in Thursday’s quarterfinal, minutes after Yassine Bounou had saved his penalty. The … Read more
Erling Haaland is playing this World Cup on the longest contract in Premier League history: a nine-and-a-half-year Manchester City deal signed in January 2025 that runs to June 2034, pays a reported £525,000 per week in base wages, and can swell toward £875,000 a week once his near-automatic goal bonuses kick in. Forbes ranks him … Read more
Erling Haaland has scored more than 350 senior goals for club and country, and he doesn’t turn 26 until the week of the World Cup final. The Manchester City striker is currently authoring the loudest chapter yet: seven goals at his first World Cup, tied with Messi and Mbappé for the Golden Boot lead, including … Read more
For twelve years, the answer to “who has scored the most goals in World Cup history?” was Miroslav Klose, the German poacher whose 16 goals across four tournaments looked like one of football’s more durable records. Then the 2026 World Cup arrived, and in the space of three weeks the record did not just fall, … Read more
For the first time in the World Cup’s 96-year history, the final will have a halftime show, and FIFA is not easing into the concept. On July 19 at MetLife Stadium, somewhere around 3:50 p.m. ET, Madonna, Shakira, and BTS will share a stage built in the middle of the biggest sporting event on Earth, … Read more
Eight teams remain at the 2026 World Cup, and the quarterfinals that begin Thursday carry more raw history than any round of the tournament. The quarterfinal is where the World Cup’s most infamous moments live, the Hand of God was a quarterfinal, so was the ensuing Goal of the Century, four minutes apart, where England’s … Read more
Three of the greatest goalscorers alive, separated by a single goal, with three matches left to settle it. The 2026 World Cup Golden Boot race has become the tournament’s tournament: a 39-year-old legend chasing a final crown, against the two heirs apparent, each with the schedule and the form to catch him. The quarterfinals begin … Read more
The 2026 World Cup final kicks off Sunday, July 19 at 3 p.m. ET at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, 82,500 seats, five miles from Manhattan, the climax of the biggest World Cup ever played. And this final will do something no World Cup final has done in 96 years of trying: stop … Read more
Has anyone ever won back-to-back World Cups? Yes, twice, and then never again. Italy repeated in 1934 and 1938, Brazil repeated in 1958 and 1962, and in the 64 years and fifteen tournaments since, no defending champion has managed it. Not Pele’s later Brazils, not Maradona’s Argentina, not the Spain and Germany dynasties. The World … Read more