The 2026 World Cup kicked off last Thursday and over the past week we’ve seen 48 countries play 24 matches. There have been favourites who have lived up to the billing—and others who have fallen short. There have been surprise stars and upsets and a few stellar performances that frankly we never saw coming.
To look celebrate week one of the World Cup, we’re doing another round of SB Nation Reacts! and asking TLO readers to vote on their favourite game of the first round, which country they think put
in the worst performance, and which individual put in the best performance.
On the favourite match front, things got exciting early with the United States delivering a 4-1 thumping and a statement of intent with their win over Paraguay. Then we had Brazil and Morocco putting in maybe the highest quality combined performance so far in a hard-fought 1-1 draw before Iran and New Zealand surprised everyone with a high-energy 2-2 tie. To round out week one, we saw Lionel Messi and Argentina put on a show beating Algeria 3-0 and then England defeating Croatia 4-2 in a high scoring match.
For us, the worst team performance is a fight between pre-tournament favourites Spain (who drew nil-nil with Cabo Verde), Tunisia (whose coach got sacked after their 5-1 loss to a Sweden that barely qualified), Turkey (who came in with such high hopes and then limply lost 2-0 to Australia), Paraguay (that aforementioned 4-1 loss to the USA), and finally Portugal (who were weighed down by Ronaldo in a 1-1 draw with DR Congo).
And finally, for best individual we’ve got Lionel Messi’s hat-trick against Algeria, Harry Kane’s brace against Croatia, Florian Balogun for a brace against Paraguay, Erling Haaland for his brace in Norway’s 4-1 win over Iraq, and then—because it can’t all be goal scorers all the time—it’s goalkeeper Vozinha of Cabo Verde for his heroics in their famous nil-nil victory over Spain.
So. Week one. It has been, in a word, fun. Somehow. Despite FIFA’s ongoing attempts to kill the game and line their pockets (see: Gianni Infantino’s mandatory water breaks), when the football kicks off it’s still the sport we all love, and we still end up with moments worth celebrating and talking about.
So make your vote, drop a comment if you’re so inclined, and in a few days we’ll be back with the results for us as well as to see how the other SB Nation sites taking part in this survey voted.
Welcome to SB Nation Reacts. Be on the lookout for results from the survey soon!
