World Cup 2026 Power Rankings after one game: Who is No. 1? - ESPN

It has been an incredible first week at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with the superstars showing up — Lionel Messi tying the men's World Cup goals record by scoring his first hat trick in this competition, Erling Haaland scoring twice in his tournament debut, Kylian Mbappé adding two of his own to become France's all-time leading men's scorer — and the smaller nations making an impact, too. Australia stunned Türkiye to rival the U.S. for top spot in Group D, Scotland beat Haiti 1-0 for their first win at a World Cup since 1990, and tiny Cape Verde, in their tournament debut, held powerhouse world No. 1 Spain to a 0-0 draw in their first game.

Could you ask for much more from the action on the pitch? We think not, but what do these early results tell us about the front-runners and the also-rans?

As we did 100 days out, 30 days out and with 48 hours to go, we're looking at how our global reporters feel about the tournament from a contenders vs. pretenders perspective after every team's first game. We asked our panel of 20 reporters to rank their top 15 favorites from No. 1 (meaning «the trophy is theirs») to No. 15 («the cool outsider's pick for a tournament shock») and compiled their ballots into the collective ranking below.

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— World Cup 2026: Fixtures, results and all coverage

Editor's note: Voting was concluded before Thursday's games involving Mexico, South Korea, Canada, Qatar, Switzerland, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Czechia and South Africa kicked off. Performances in their second round of group stage games will be reflected in our next Power Rankings, which will launch after that round is complete on