The World Cup's biggest winners and losers: From t...

Following Argentina's 2-0 win over Austria -- after scoring his fifth goal of the tournament, and after breaking Miroslav Klose's record for most goals in World Cup history -- Lionel Messi was asked which goal was his favorite. "Honestly, I don't remember," he said. "I'm tired." And aren't we all? That's 48 games in the books, a number we normally wouldn't reach until the final match of the group stage finished during the 32-team era. We still have 24 more games to go before the knockout rounds begin. So, if you're tired and, like Messi, don't remember anything that just happened, then we've got you covered. Here are your metaphorical winners and losers from the first two weeks of the 2026 World Cup. Winner: The U.S. men's national team Mauricio Pochettino & Co. are the biggest winners of the first two rounds of the World Cup. They, of course, have literally won both matches, but the team also increased its chances of winning more matches to a larger degree than anyone else. Coming into the tournament, the projections from the analyst Michael Caley gave the U.S. men's national team a 53% chance of reaching the round of 16. Just two games in, that number is up to 84% -- by far the largest increase for any team in the field. Their most likely opponent for the round of 32 is Bosnia-Herzegovina, followed by Qatar -- or the teams I had ranked 37th and 48th, respectively, before the tournament. It doesn't stop there, though. Coming into the tournament, a quarterfinal appearance for the U.S. would've been viewed as a massive success by anyone outside of that weird, small group of people on the internet who seem to still think that Gio Reyna is the next Mesut Ozil. And well, based on Caley's projections, a quarterfinal appearance is now slightly more likely than not: 53%, with Belgium just slightly more likely than Egypt to be their opponent. In fact, only three other teams have a better chance of reaching the final eight. But why not keep going? Caley's model gives the U.S. a 19% chance -- basically, one-in-five -- of reaching the semifinals, up from 8% before the World Cup, the second-biggest increase in the field. Want to believe that they will win it all? There's even a 2.5% shot, which is nearly triple their pre-tournament championship equity. How does a team change its projections so quickly after two games? They play well and they get lucky. The Americans were deserved winners in both matches. And at this point it's clear: Pochettino has turned them into the rare international side that can execute a coherent high press. Per the stats app Futi, the U.S. has made more defensive actions in the attacking third than any team other than Spain, and both Tyler Adams and Malik Tillman rank second and third, respectively, for individual players. At the same time, they Americans also went ahead with oh-so-valuable early goals in both matches when opposing players kicked the ball into their own goals. Their theoretical toughest group stage opponent Turkiye has both underperformed and been unlucky in front of goal -- and now they're eliminated. And the knockout draw seems as if it's going to fall nicely for them, too, with a poor Group B opponent and then, at worst, a scuffling Belgium side. Of course, the worst-case scenario is also happening: Christian Pulisic is injured. But they're even experiencing the best-case version of that: clinch the group after two matches and make it so he gets a full 2½ weeks of rest between games. Even if he's not ready to go for the round of 32, the Americans will still be heavily favored to win against an opponent that is significantly worse than either Paraguay or Australia. The past two games really make the past two years of consternation seem so silly, don't they? The USMNT has more talent than ever before, and it's being managed by one of the best coaches in the world. The result, unsurprisingly: a U.S. team that, if a couple of more bounces go its way, could easily be playing deeper into the tournament than they ever have. Loser: Lionel Messi What's the easiest, valuable thing to do on a soccer field? You know, like, the one thing that happens pretty frequently that we'd expect any player to execute successfully? It's converting a penalty kick. Across the past five Premier League seasons, there have been 484 penalties taken, and 400 of them have been converted. So, the expected conversion rate for penalty kicks is around 82.5%, while the conversion rate for all shots over the same time frame is 11.3%. Over the 876 competitive matches in the Stats Perform database, Messi has attempted 4,116 total shots and scored 751 of them -- a conversion rate of 18.2%. Add in the fact that he's also attempting more shots per game than basically any other player, and yes, he has the most men's World Cup goals of all time, currently leading the tournament with five at 39 years old. To whatever remaining Cristiano Ronaldo stans still exist, screaming into the digital void and gradually convincing me with your polite, well-thought-out messages sent to my personal inbox: your best bet is to get your PhD in archaeology and figure out a way to prove that Messi was born on another planet. He gets tired, too, but he has nothing in common with anybody else. That is, unless you move everyone out of the penalty box, tell the goalkeeper he can't move off his line, place the ball just 12 yards from goal, and let him kick it whenever and however he wants. After his miss against Algeria, Messi has attempted 117 penalties across those 876 games and scored 94 -- an 80.3% conversion rate. In the following image, orange are goals and purple are misses: He's the best scorer, the best creator, the best dribbler, the best off-ball mover, the best walker, and the best passer across the modern history of the world's most popular game. There is only one thing Messi is bad at, and it's the easiest part of the sport. Winner: The stars who were supposed to displace Messi If you subscribe to the individual game of one-upmanship that warped the previous era of world soccer, then sure, Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland are losers. An elder millennial missed a penalty and still has more goals than both of them through two World Cup matches. If you subscribe to any other version of comprehending a complex sport with 11 players who never have possession of the ball for more than three total minutes across a full game, then Mbappe and Haaland have lived up to their billing as the defining players of the current generation. They've each scored four goals, and they're doing it how all great goal scorers do: by getting lots of great shots. Per Futi, only Messi has generated more expected goals than Haaland, and only Messi has attempted more shots than Mbappe. Winner: Us Next up: Mbappe and Haaland play against each other, with first place in Group I on the line. The fun continues. Loser: Long-range shots Just like with the U.S., but in the other direction: teams that massively disappoint on their pre-tournament expectations usually are unlucky. Turkiye have scored zero goals from 3.53 expected goals, and they've conceded three goals from 1.50 expected. They've already been eliminated. But that makes it seem as if they should've won both matches. No, they were chasing the game against teams that had gone ahead and stopped trying to attack. In other words, they were playing teams that wanted them to do exactly what they did: settle for low-probability shots from outside the box. Through two games, Turikye attempted 62 shots -- more than anyone else in the field -- but 40 of those shots had an xG value of 0.05 or lower, 14 more than any other team. Their three stars, Kenan Yildiz, Hakan Çalhanoglu, and Arda Güler, combined for 34 shots: The problem: only two of them had an xG (expected goals) value of more than 0.06. Winner: The other hosts In their 6-0 victory against Qatar, Canada did something I've never seen them do before. Uh, win a World Cup game? OK, but they also did another thing I've never seen before. They generated 97 touches inside the penalty area. I looked back through every World Cup game in the 32-or-more-team era, and that's 26 more penalty area touches than the next highest on record. Not only that, they allowed only one opposition touch inside their own box. Qatar are one of the worst teams we've ever seen at a World Cup. Frankly, they probably are the worst team to ever appear at a World Cup. But even dominating a terrible team to a never-before-seen degree should tell us something positive about Canada's quality, right? As for Mexico, they haven't come close to hitting the same heights as the Americans or Canadians have. They've simply just been ... competent? Businesslike? Choose any other word that has never been used to describe the typically hysterical El Tri? Under Javier Aguirre, Mexico have basically been twice as good as their two opponents so far: almost exactly twice as many xG created as conceded and exactly twice as many shots and penalty area touches created as conceded. With first place already clinched, a round-of-32 win would most likely mean a fascinating round-of-16 matchup with England -- at the Azteca. Loser: Me, for calling out Carlo Ancelotti and Ronald Koeman After Brazil and the Netherlands drew their opening matches, I wrote the following about the former managers of Real Madrid and Barcelona: "Both coaches put in massive stinkers ..." Well, in the second matches, both managers made smart adjustments. Koeman shifted Donyell Malen, one of Europe's better goal-scoring wingers this past season, back out to the wing and brought in Sunderland's Brian Brobbey. He's a physical center forward who doesn't create shots for himself -- the exact kind of player who is going out of style in the club game but can still flourish on the simplified international stage. He completed five passes, took two shots ... and scored two goals in a dominant 5-1 win over Sweden. In Brazil's second match, Ancelotti did the opposite: removed his beefy striker, Brentford's Igor Thiago, and replaced him with Manchester United's Matheus Cunha, who is much more of an attacking midfielder than a traditional center forward. Just look at where he touched the ball: This gave Brazil a little more control in midfield, and it seemed to open up space for Brazil's two superstar attackers -- their wingers Vinícius Júnior and Raphinha -- to run into. Oh yeah: and Cunha scored two goals of his own. Both Sweden and Haiti are weak defensive teams, so the concerns for Koeman and Ancelotti haven't dissipated. But two games in, both teams already make a lot more sense. Winner: Whatever goal-frame Ecuador is playing against While Turkiye's impressive-looking statistical profile is an artifact of how poorly they played when their games were even, that is not the case with Ecuador. The ball simply hasn't gone into the goal. More specifically, it keeps smashing against the crossbar and the post. They hit the woodwork three times in the opening 1-0 loss to Ivory Coast, and then they hit the crossbar in the scoreless draw with Curacao. They've created more xG than Turkiye (3.85) from nearly half of the attempts (39). Coming into the tournament, Caley's model gave Ecuador a 95% chance of making it out of their group. After the cold streak, it's down to 29%. Next up? Germany. Winner: Jurgen Klopp It has to be so weird to be Germany manager Julian Nagelsmann. And I don't mean because he skateboards to practice, thinks one of his players should be wearing an earpiece during the game so he can issue tactical commands directly from the sideline, brings at least three shirts with himself wherever he goes, or anything like that. No, it has to be really strange that arguably the greatest soccer coach in the world is commenting on your team's performance for a German broadcaster. It's not as if Klopp, who is working for Magenta TV this summer, is some washed up legend from a bygone era -- he was coaching Liverpool two seasons ago and could have whatever coaching job he wanted right now. Before the opening match with Curacao, Klopp said he would've preferred to see Deniz Undav, the second-leading scorer in the Bundesliga this past season, starting over Jamal Musiala, who broke his ankle less than a year ago and returned for Bayern Munich only toward the end of this past season. This caused a minor national crisis. How dare a television commentator ... commentate on the national team?!?!? Klopp quickly apologized to Nagelsmann, they shook hands, and that was supposed to be that. Then, with Germany down 1-0 to Ivory Coast in the 67th minute on Saturday, Nagelsmann subbed Undav on for Musiala. Undav scored twice. Germany won 2-1. Losers: Teams that have consistently outperformed their population size and set unrealistic expectations Neither Belgium nor Uruguay should be soccer powers. The former's GDP is smaller than Ireland's, while fewer than four million people live in Uruguay. Yet Belgium have recently reached No. 1 in the FIFA rankings, and Uruguay have won two World Cups and seemingly qualify for the tournament every time. Both teams have superstar players who have recently won the Champions League ... and both teams are winless at the World Cup despite playing the likes of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Cape Verde. Before the tournament, Caley's model gave Belgium a 3% chance of winning it all and Uruguay a 2.2% shot. With one game left to go in their groups, those numbers are down to 1.7% and 0.7%. Winner: Lamine Yamal Take Lamine Yamal out of the starting lineup: Spain score zero goals and draw with what's supposed to be one of the worst teams at the World Cup. Put Yamal into the starting lineup: Spain go up 3-0 within 25 minutes and dominate so heavily that they can sub him out at halftime. The case for Spain winning the World Cup isn't all that complicated. They've conceded 0.35 expected goals through two matches -- by far the best mark in the competition -- and their 18-year-old winger might be the best soccer player in the world. The only requirement for it all to work is for Yamal to be on the field. Loser: Anyone who expected anything different from Portugal Despite plenty of valid criticisms, such as the ones posed by my colleague Bill Connelly who was at the opening draw with Congo DR, coach Roberto Martinez was not going to replace Cristiano Ronaldo in Portugal's starting lineup. And I don't think the dominant 5-0 win against Uzbekistan really tells us all that much that we didn't already know. Well, it tells us that this team isn't completely broken -- which arose as a possibility after the first match. It tells us that Aston Villa's Austin MacPhee has buy-in for his set-piece program with Portugal, and that Uzbekistan, who now have 11 total touches inside the opposition penalty area through their first two matches, just aren't very good. Let's check back in after the group decider against Colombia on Saturday. Loser: Thomas Tuchel's roster selection England were awful against Ghana. Sure, they controlled 87% of the final-third possession and outshot their opponents, 19-2, but they turned that into a Turkiye-esque 1.28 xG -- a big chunk of which came from a goalmouth ricochet that fell to the feet of Harry Kane, who then deposited the ball into the Charles River. Ghana barely attacked, though they were more dangerous than the shots or xG totals suggest. Somehow they weren't awarded a penalty when Esri Konsa suplexed Prince Kwabena Adu inside the box. And a couple of other promising possessions didn't lead to attempts -- one of which was terminated by Jordan Pickford piledriving Adu, who was somehow called for a foul. Ghana generated five dangerous attacks -- essentially, possessions that reach a high level of goal-scoring probability -- while only conceding six, per Futi. Despite not even qualifying for the Africa Cup of Nations, they're almost definitely through to the knockouts now. The result doesn't really mean much for England's chances of finishing atop the group. Even a draw against Panama might be enough. And the weakness we saw might not really matter in the knockout rounds, where most of their opponents won't sit as deep as Ghana did. But boy did they sure look like a team without any creative passers on the roster. You might be thinking: "It's hard not to wonder if at least one of Cole Palmer, Adam Wharton or Trent Alexander-Arnold would've been useful in matches in which England is struggling to break down a set defense." And, well, I wrote those exact words, back on June 2, before the tournament started. Alexander-Arnold, in particular, might be the best player in the world at breaking down low blocks like the one Carlos Queiroz just cooked up. If England go behind against a team like, say, Argentina in the knockout rounds, what are they going to do?