Day 23 until kickoff
The first time Lionel Messi walked into a World Cup dressing room, the iPhone didn't exist. Cristiano Ronaldo still had frosted tips. Twenty years later, both men are packing for North America — and neither has ever had to answer the question they're now facing: what do you do when there is no next time?
The Weight of "No Next Time"
Most athletes get to retire on their own terms, in a quiet moment, away from the cameras. Messi and Ronaldo don't get that. Their goodbye is happening in real time, in front of five billion people, across 104 matches in three countries. VAVEL's deep-dive on the generation that refused to leave quietly puts it plainly: the story bleeding through every broadcast this summer will be older and simpler than any format change or logistics puzzle. It is the story of goodbye.
What makes it genuinely interesting — not just sentimental — is how differently these two men are arriving at the same moment.
Messi, 38 and turning 39 during the tournament, has already won everything. Qatar was supposed to be his ending: seven goals, three assists, the captain's armband, the bisht, the trophy. He could have stopped there and no one would have argued. Instead he chose to risk it. That's the actual drama — not whether Argentina wins, but whether Messi exits without tarnishing something that is already perfect. Coach Lionel Scaloni has built the squad around a Messi who touches the ball less and decides more, a player whose sprints are shorter but whose passes have become absurd again, the way they were at 23. Economy of movement has forced him back into pure genius. Argentina's 55-man provisional squad confirms he's in — headlining alongside Alejandro Garnacho and Lisandro Martínez, with Paulo Dybala and Ángel Correa among the notable absences.
Ronaldo's situation is structurally different. Fox Sports reported on May 13 that his sixth and likely final World Cup will be the first since he left Europe for Al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia — which means this tournament arrives with a question mark attached that Messi's doesn't. Ronaldo, at 41, still has to prove he belongs. That's a different kind of pressure: not protecting a legacy, but defending one.
The contrast is almost too clean. Messi has nothing to prove and everything to lose. Ronaldo has everything to prove and, arguably, nothing left to lose. One man is protecting an ending; the other is still writing his.
Player Spotlight: A Generation Saying Goodbye Together
Messi and Ronaldo aren't the only ones. The VAVEL piece names Luka Modrić, Mohamed Salah, and Son Heung-min as part of the same farewell class — a generation that collectively refused to leave quietly. Modrić, who turns 41 in September, has been the heartbeat of Croatian football for two decades. Salah finally gets his World Cup stage after Egypt's long qualification drought ended. Son carries South Korea's hopes one more time.
What's striking is that none of them are here as ceremonial figures. Each is still performing at a level that justifies selection on merit, not sentiment. The tournament won't treat them gently — a 48-team field means more matches, more fatigue, more chances for a 22-year-old to run past a 38-year-old in the 85th minute. The expanded format that gives smaller nations their moment is also the format most likely to expose the physical limits of aging legends.
That tension — legacy versus legs — is the subplot that will run under every group stage match involving these players.
Host City Note: The Final Is Already Booked
While the squad narratives take shape, the stage is set. Sky Sports confirmed the 104-game tournament ends at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Sunday, July 19. If Messi's Argentina and Ronaldo's Portugal were to meet there — which would require both to navigate a 48-team bracket without meeting until the final — it would be the most-watched soccer match in history. The bracket won't be that cooperative. It almost never is. But the possibility alone is doing real work on the collective imagination right now.
Mexico opens the tournament against South Africa on June 11. Twenty-three days from today, the whole thing begins.
Countdown Corner
The number is 6. Ronaldo will appear in his sixth World Cup this summer — joining an extraordinarily small club. Only three other outfield players in history have appeared in six World Cups: Lothar Matthäus (Germany), Rafael Márquez (Mexico), and Antonio Carbajal (Mexico). Messi, appearing in his fifth, would match Matthäus's outfield-player record for total World Cup appearances if he plays every match. Neither man is done collecting history, apparently.
Final 26-player squads are due to FIFA by June 2. England's Thomas Tuchel names his squad on Friday, May 22. Watch for Portugal's official announcement — and whether Ronaldo's inclusion comes with any conditions attached.