By Opta Analyst | Created at 2026-06-18 12:33:40 | Updated at 2026-06-18 15:09:43
2 hours ago
We’re a week into the 2026 World Cup, with every team now having played once. What can we glean from the first 24 games, though? We have picked six takeaways from Matchday 1.
It took a week, but we have finally seen all 48 teams at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
That’s not to say the tournament has dragged. It’s been exciting already, and after 24 games we have reached the end of Matchday 1.
A treasured pastime when it comes to World Cups is making sweeping conclusions after everyone has played once, so that’s what we’ll do here.
We won’t describe them as ‘knee-jerk reactions’, especially considering some teams last played almost a week ago, and those can wait until the return of our popular series of the same name when the new Premier League season gets under way in August.
A World Cup is a great time for a takeaway, though, so here are six of them from MD1 of the 2026 edition.
USA Mean Business
One of the tournament’s three co-host nations along with Canada and Mexico, the United States started their World Cup campaign with an emphatic 4-1 victory over Paraguay, impressing at both ends of the pitch.
With the eyes of the world on them, USA were under pressure to perform, and they really rose to the occasion in Los Angeles.
A brace from Folarin Balogun helped them to victory, in between an early own goal and a superb late effort from Giovanni Reyna.
Balogun became the first USA player to score multiple goals in a World Cup match for 96 years, since Bert Patenaude scored a hat-trick against Paraguay in the inaugural tournament.
Mauricio Pochettino’s side have already scored more goals than in the 2022 World Cup, when they only found the net three times in four games.
Veteran defender Tim Ream also put in a real captain’s performance, showing a desire to progress the ball through the thirds. Twenty of his 91 attempted passes ended in the final third, with 16 of those 20 finding a teammate. Ream also had a level of incision to his passing, making 23 line-breaking passes during the match, the most by a defender in a single World Cup match since John Paintsil in a 2010 match that went to extra-time.
Perhaps the most outstanding aspect of the USA’s performance was their high-intensity pressing. Pochettino urged his players to play on the front foot, and they recorded 16 high turnovers during the game, three of which resulted in shots and one led to a goal.
It remains to be seen if the USA can maintain this intense, free-flowing approach over a number of games, but fans should be buoyed after MD1.
Messi and Mbappé Could Raise the Bar Further
Tuesday was the day of talismanic figures stepping up for their countries, with Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi breaking numerous records during their first appearances of this World Cup. Erling Haaland also scored twice on his World Cup debut for Norway, but he ended up being rather overshadowed.
Mbappé came to the fore in the second half of France’s 3-1 win over Senegal. His brace saw him reach 58 goals for France, surpassing Olivier Giroud to become the country’s all-time leading goalscorer.
The Real Madrid striker also took his goal tally at World Cups to 14, meaning he overtook Just Fontaine as France’s leading scorer on the biggest stage in world football.
Mbappé also now sits just two goals off the World Cup’s all-time top scorers Miroslav Klose and Messi, who have 16 goals apiece at the tournament. He may harbour hopes of surpassing Klose at least in France’s next game against Iraq.
After Mbappé had edged ahead of him in the goalscoring charts earlier in the day, Messi responded emphatically in Argentina’s game against Algeria, scoring a hat-trick. Although he had previously scored 10 international hat-tricks, this was Messi’s first at a World Cup, and, aged 38 years and 357 days, he became the oldest player to score a treble in the men’s tournament.
Now level with Klose as the leading scorer in World Cup history, Messi will have the opportunity to claim the record outright as Argentina face Austria four hours before France kick-off against Iraq.
Following Mbappé and Messi as they go blow-for-blow to become the World Cup’s highest scorer should make for excellent viewing in the coming days and weeks, and there is every chance they both push Klose into third place in the scoring charts by the end of the tournament.
Goals Galore
We have seen a lot of goals at the 2026 World Cup.
The record for most goals at a World Cup is 172 (in 2022), and that will surely be smashed this time around. Fine, given we’ll be getting 40 more games than usual, that might not be the most shocking thing, but there have still been a lot of goals.
There were 75 in the opening 24 games, an average of 3.1 per game. If that rate continues, we’ll ultimately be treated to 325 goals this summer.
Not only that, but it is the highest average of goals per game at a World Cup since 1958, when 126 goals were scored in just 35 games (3.6 per game).
The highest average since then was 2.8 in 1982 (146 goals in 52 games), while it never went beyond 2.7 (2022) when the World Cup was a 64-game tournament (1998-2022).
One possible reason could be that an expanded tournament means the average gap in quality between teams in games is greater than before. We all enjoyed seeing World Cup debutants Curaçao equalise against Germany, but they were eventually thrashed 7-1.
Having said that, other teams to have conceded quite a few include sides who are more accustomed to major international competition: Tunisia (5), Paraguay and Croatia (both 4) all let in at least four, while Cape Verde stunningly held the mighty Spain to a 0-0 draw on their World Cup debut.
That draw between Cape Verde and Spain was the only 0-0 draw of MD1. So, will we continue to see goals fly in? Let’s hope so.
Are Spain Too Reliant on Yamal and Williams?
Spain huffed and puffed against Cape Verde in their 0-0 draw, but they just could not find a way through.
Now, we should say there is no need to panic. La Roja remain among the favourites with the Opta supercomputer, and there are plenty of examples of teams having slow starts to a tournament before winning it.
Not only did Argentina recover from shockingly losing to Saudi Araba in their 2022 opener, Spain lost 1-0 to Switzerland in 2010 before lifting what remains their sole World Cup.
However, there were issues for them against Cape Verde.
You will surely now have seen the stat that Spain forward Mikel Oyarzabal became the first player on record (since 1966) to not touch the ball once in the first 30 minutes of a World Cup game.
Perhaps more damning, though, was that Spain completed 734 passes and did precious little with the ball; since 1966, the only team to complete more passes in a World Cup game without scoring were Spain themselves in their last-16 clash against Morocco in 2022 (926, drew 0-0).
In fact, since Spain last scored a World Cup goal (group stage vs Japan in 2022), they have completed exactly 2,500 passes without scoring. That suggests they are seeing a lot of the ball but struggling to break down their opposition, which may seem odd for a team who were so impressive and deadly as they won Euro 2024 two years ago.
The fact their undisputed stars of that Euros campaign, Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams, didn’t start Monday’s goalless draw was notable. Both were recovering from injuries, but Ferran Torres and Gavi on the wings just didn’t have the same impact. Both are fine players in their own right but very different to Yamal and Williams.
The pace, skill and directness of Yamal and Williams tore teams to shreds two years ago at the Euros. Yamal recorded the most assists at the tournament (4), while he (2.01) and Williams (2.06) led everyone else for expected assists.
Luis de la Fuente will want them fully back and firing soon.
Hydration Breaks
Yes, we had to cover them. All anyone can talk about right now is hydration breaks, which have taken place in every game at this tournament, and will continue to be a feature throughout. One three-minute break per half to take on water, as well as tactical instructions it seems.
It is theoretically for player welfare (the water, anyway), which is fair enough when you remember the scorching conditions in North America for the FIFA Club World Cup last summer. Whether they’re needed in every game at the World Cup, especially those in air-conditioned stadiums, is up for debate however. Cynics will insist the implementation of hydration breaks is merely a thinly veiled way of letting broadcasters get more ad revenue.
The main discussion right now, though, is the impact they appear to be having on games. A team might be on top and knocking on the door, only for a water break to stop proceedings for three minutes. Upon the restart, all their momentum has disappeared.
It is a difficult thing to measure, really. Yes, we can look at numbers before and after hydration breaks, which we will do shortly, but you also must consider that even games without water breaks see momentum swing drastically during a single half.
Game state also comes into it. In the second half particularly, it is likelier that one team will be leading so the other has to change their approach – while also in second halves especially, halts in play are already quite frequent with substitutions, injuries and general timewasting.
So, it is probably more telling to look at the possible impact on first halves.
There have been 33 goals scored in the first halves of games at this World Cup, with 14 before the hydration break and 19 after.
That might make it seem like there isn’t much of a difference, but when we look at shots being taken, the threat does seem to rise afterwards. There have been 115 shots prior to the first-half hydration break, and 170 between the break and half-time.
Of the 48 teams, only 11 had more shots before the first-half hydration break than they did after, whereas 26 had more efforts at goal between the break and half-time (11 had the same amount).
We’ll keep an eye on things as the tournament progresses, particularly regarding the impact on match momentum, but teams will need to get used to it for the rest of this tournament at least.
Now, excuse us while we grab some water before moving onto our last takeaway…
Substitutes Are Scoring
This one might not be all that surprising. After all, there are now five subs allowed for each team per game, whereas back in 1966, there weren’t any. Substitutions didn’t come into World Cups until 1970, when teams were permitted to make two each per game.
Three were allowed from 1998 onwards, before five came in at the 2022 World Cup.
There were 30 goals scored by subs at the 2022 World Cup, but interestingly, that wasn’t a record. There were 32 scored in 2014, despite still only allowing three subs per team.
After 24 games of the 2026 World Cup, there have already been 13 goals from subs (0.54 per game), up on the average from 2014 of exactly 0.5 per game.
Of course, that’s before we get to the knockout stages, when extra-time potentially comes into play, making it a bit likelier that subs will score.
Whether the current rate will continue remains to be seen, but for now, players wanting to prove themselves from the bench after being left out of the starting lineup seems to be a thing. Marcus Rashford in particular may have taken more joy than most at finding the net against Croatia after replacing new Barcelona signing Anthony Gordon, who was anonymous.
With the introduction of hydration breaks, it will be interesting to see if subs are used more strategically given those breaks should allow players to stay on for longer without tiring as early. But nonetheless, coaches are still turning to their bench and getting results for now.
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