2026 World Cup Preview: Heavyweights and Underdogs
With the 2026 World Cup in North America now just weeks away, the sport is bracing for its first 48-team finals. The field is bloated, the logistics are vast, but at the sharp end the usual heavyweights are circling. Some arrive at full throttle. Others drag questions, ghosts and ageing icons with them.
Here is where the power lies.
France: One Last Charge for Deschamps
France arrive as world No.1 and as something more ominous than that: a side that knows exactly how to navigate this tournament.
Two titles, two final defeats on penalties in the last seven editions. Nobody has lived the modern World Cup quite like Les Bleus. This will be the last dance for Didier Deschamps, in charge since 2012, and he knows it. “It's a strange feeling,” he admitted, staring down the end of an era.
On the pitch, the numbers are cold and ruthless. Unbeaten in nine since last June. A 2-1 win over Brazil in March on American soil. A 3-1 victory against Colombia days later, with an entirely different starting XI. Same control. Same edge.
The attack is terrifying. Reigning Ballon d'Or winner Ousmane Dembele, Kylian Mbappe, Michael Olise, Rayan Cherki – different profiles, same threat. They can sprint past you, play through you, or simply overwhelm you with depth. Every World Cup needs a team that feels inevitable. France might be that team again.
Spain: A Machine Missing a Cog
Spain come in as European champions and the world’s No.2. They have not lost since lifting Euro 2024, and Luis de la Fuente has built a side that hums with rhythm and structure. They move the ball, they squeeze space, they wear you down.
At the heart of that has been Lamine Yamal, the teenage winger who has turned Barcelona and Spain games into his own stage. But the story now is his hamstring. The 18-year-old is out, and reports suggest he could miss Spain’s first two group matches. For a side so finely tuned, that absence bites.
It doesn’t stop there. Fermin Lopez, another Barcelona product, is set to miss the tournament entirely with a foot fracture. Mikel Merino, so prolific for Spain in 2025 with eight goals in 10 games, has not played since January because of injury.
Yet Spain still walk into this World Cup with heavyweight quality. Rodri, the 2024 Ballon d'Or winner, remains the anchor and metronome. Pedri brings invention and control between the lines. The machine has lost some pieces, but the core remains elite.
Argentina: Messi’s Second Act in America
Argentina are not just defending champions. They are defending a story.
Lionel Scaloni’s side conquered Qatar in 2022, delivering Lionel Messi’s crowning glory. That final felt like the closing chapter of a career, the last page of a footballing epic. Now he turns 39 next month and the question hangs over everything: how long can he keep doing this?
The answer, at least in the United States, has been blunt. Messi has 12 goals in 13 MLS games for Inter Miami this year. He looks comfortable, settled, adored. The pitches, the travel, the noise – all of it is familiar now. That matters.
Argentina also own the continent. They won the 2024 Copa America in the USA and cruised through South American qualifying, topping the group with room to spare. And this is no one-man show. Lautaro Martinez, Julian Alvarez and Nico Paz give Scaloni layers of attacking options. Paz, the Tenerife-born playmaker now at Como, adds another creative thread to a forward line already heavy with movement and goals.
The Messi question lingers, but the squad around him is good enough that Argentina are not just clinging to a legend. They are coming to win again.
England: New Face on an Old Obsession
England arrive ranked fourth in the world and carrying the same burden as always, only heavier.
Under Gareth Southgate they came close, repeatedly. Euro finals lost. A World Cup semi-final in 2018. A quarter-final exit in 2022. Enough progress to change the mood, not enough to end the drought that stretches back to 1966.
Now the FA has turned to Thomas Tuchel. A German in charge of England, hired to finish what Southgate started and deliver the one trophy that still defines the nation’s footballing identity.
Qualifying offered encouragement. England cruised through, showing the depth and talent that make them contenders in every tournament they enter. But the cracks are there. A draw with Uruguay and a defeat to Japan in March friendlies have cooled some of the hype. Jude Bellingham and Cole Palmer, both central to the country’s hopes, have endured complicated campaigns.
Harry Kane, though, remains the constant. His numbers for Bayern Munich this season – 58 goals – are outrageous even by his standards. If he carries that form into the World Cup, Tuchel has a focal point that any champion needs.
Portugal: Between Ronaldo and the Future
Portugal sit at No.5 and look, on paper, like a side built to go deep. The talent is everywhere, especially in midfield.
Vitinha, Joao Neves, Bernardo Silva, Bruno Fernandes – that quartet alone can control games, change tempo and create chances from nothing. They won the UEFA Nations League last year and have the technical level to dominate most opponents.
But the story, inevitably, circles back to Cristiano Ronaldo. At 41, he is heading into his sixth World Cup. That is history in itself, yet also a tactical dilemma. His presence still shapes everything: the system, the hierarchy, the spotlight. The question is whether that helps or holds back a team whose strength now lies behind the striker.
Qualifying reminded Portugal of their fragility. They stumbled in Ireland, losing as Ronaldo was sent off. In their most recent outing, a 2-0 friendly win over the USA in Atlanta, he did not play. The performance looked balanced. The decision facing the coach could define their tournament.
Brazil: Ancelotti and an Identity on Trial
Brazil arrive as the great unknown.
Carlo Ancelotti on the Selecao bench is a striking image in itself. That Brazil felt the need to turn to an Italian tactician tells its own story about a country wrestling with its footballing soul. The days of endless depth and automatic fear factor are gone. The current pool is talented but thinner, the aura dented.
Ancelotti’s squad list underlines that tension. Neymar is back. At 34, now playing for Santos and uncapped since 2023, he has been recalled into a group that increasingly belongs to Vinicius Junior. The Real Madrid star is the attacking leader now, the face of a new Brazil trying to step out from the shadow of past failures.
The record since 2002 is stark. One semi-final, in 2014, ending in that 7-1 humiliation by Germany on home soil. Fifth place in South American qualifying this time, six defeats in 18 games. The badge still carries weight, but the results no longer match the myth.
Ancelotti sees the landscape clearly. “The World Cup won't be won by a perfect team — because a perfect team doesn't exist,” he says. “It will be won by the most resilient team.” Brazil must prove they are still that kind of team.
Germany: Fallen Giant, Dangerous Outsider
Germany sit 10th in the rankings, behind the Netherlands, Morocco and Belgium. On paper, they do not look like champions in waiting. On memory, they still do.
Recent history has been brutal. Group-stage exits in 2018 and 2022. A Euro 2024 quarter-final defeat as hosts. For a nation that once treated semi-finals as a minimum, the fall has been steep.
Julian Nagelsmann now leads a rebuild that is more evolution than revolution. The squad is lighter on global stars than in previous eras, yet the core quality remains undeniable. Joshua Kimmich brings authority and range. Florian Wirtz offers the kind of creativity that can crack tight knockout games. Kai Havertz, still enigmatic, has the talent to tilt a tournament if he catches fire.
Germany no longer stride into a World Cup as favourites. They arrive as a threat in the second row, less fancied, more dangerous for it. And in a tournament that will test depth, adaptability and nerve across 48 teams and a sprawling continent, that might be exactly where they want to be.
