Messi, Bellingham & Rodri: Picking Our World Cup Best XI

With the World Cup coming to an end, it only feels right to pull together 4-4-2's definitive World Cup XI

So, here it is. Let's kick things off, pun intended, with the goalkeeper position

My brain tells me Unai Simon for his clean sheets, a save percentage of over 90%

and of course Spain's World Cup in general. But, my heart is telling me, Virginia

I mean, when else will we witness a story quite like Cape Verde's 40-year-old goalkeeper

stopping Spain's scoring, helping his team qualify for the knockouts on an unbeaten group stage record

and push Argentina all the way to extra time? Sure, I may be buying into the social media hype a little bit on this one

but being a top goalkeeper on the biggest stage is Unai Simon's bread and butter

This is above and beyond for Vosinha. For those same reasons, I could have also picked Kurosawa's Iloiroum

Iran's Alireza Birenvand or Norway's Oskar Nyland. But as far as I'm aware, you can only name one goalkeeper in your starting 11

So Vosinha it is. Into the fence now and starting it right back

there's Spain's semi-final hero, Pedro Porro. Now, I'm not just talking about his well-taken goal versus France, nor his well-timed header versus Austria, but his all-round play throughout the tournament, which has seen him justify his selection and then some

He's got two man of the match awards, two goals, and has made up part of a record-breaking Spanish defence, who went five games straight without conceding a goal before the Belgium quarterfinal

Also, big props to Ashraf Hakimi in another good World Cup showing for him in Morocco, as well as Alex Freeman bombing up and down the right wing for host USA

but Porro just edges it this time. The first of the two centre-backs has to be Lissandro Martinez

Now, for someone who's been through injury hell in the past couple of seasons, to regain his form, make it to the World Cup

it's been a spectacular effort. He's actually missed over 330 days of football in the last two years

yet has stepped onto the world stage and looked as comfortable as ever. Of course, his defensive ability has helped push Argentina all the way to the final

but going forward, his impact has been brilliant too. a goal, an assist, and 93.6% pass completion, elite

It's actually a close call between him and centre-back partner Cristiano Romero, but Martinez takes the spot

And the other centre-back spot belongs to Diot-Opomecano. Now, during the Frenchman's time in the competition

nobody made more interceptions than him, and no defender won possession more times or made more tackles than him A complete stalwart at the back Did the tournament end in disappointment for him and his team Sure but you can knock his contributions over the entire tournament I Rick Laporte and Pau Koubasi are both up there for largely the same reason that Pedro

Porro and our left-back are. It honestly could have been decided on the toss of a coin. Oh

and we'll have to give a big shout out to Pico Lopez as well. Cape Verde will go down in 2026

folklore, and so will he. The last man in the back four then, and yes, we return to Spain

because Marco Correa's tournament has been exceptional in a team and personal level

He's contributed to that sturdy defence I've been banging on about. He's got three assists while simultaneously locking up some of the best right-wingers

the World Cup has to offer. And lastly, did he seal a dream move to Real Madrid from Chelsea for around 50 million quid

You bet he did. All in all, not a bad month for the former Chelsea man. He was named in the team of the tournament for Spain's successful Euro 2024 campaign

and I'm sure regardless of what happens in the final, he'll be well-placed to take a spot this time around too

Honestly, looking at other options, I thought Nuno Mendes was good for Portugal, but their lack of progression keeps him out

Jed Spence could have made either full-back slot with some great performances, and Nathaniel Brown made a good go

of his first international tournament with Germany, but none came close to Cucurea

Just no awkward song afterwards this time, please, Mark. We start in the midfield with the more defensive of the duo

of which there doesn't need to be one because this team doesn't really need to make sense. It's not like they're playing anyone or it needs to be realistic, but I'm doing it anyway

The defensive minded position is filled by Rodri. I mean, his career will be looked back on as elite, top, top level

but to watch him is rather unremarkable, and the same could be said about his World Cup

Could I, off the top of my head, give you a moment where I've gone absolutely mad over something he's done

No, but he's doing absolutely everything else, keeping Spain ticking over, he's there to break up dangerous counter-attacks and can be relied upon in all areas of the pitch

I think central midfield is difficult to choose, but actually, this one's fairly easy

Alongside him, Enzo Fernandes has been as good as you'd expect him to be, if not better

which is very good, keeping Argentina tenacious and aggressive from front to back, even popping up with a few important goals

Steven Estacchio was a great watch for Host Canada during their run to the last 16 and Johan Manzambi has been fantastic for Switzerland but playing a little bit more attacking than a true central midfielder Although to be honest the same thing goes for Jude Beningham too but this is where I stick him An all of a World Cup

It'll go down in the history books as a definitive summer in an England shirt, and he's been

keeping up the top scorers in the competition the whole way, carrying England on his back

making a nation believe, if I get any more excited, I'll start singing Hey Jude right

here, right now. You get the point. Jude's in. Now the number 10 role

Is there a crazy amount of hate for the Argentinian team amongst claims of conspiracy and cheating

Yeah, there is. But denying the fact that Messi is yet again, age 39 now, put on display after display of the highest order is just wrong on so many levels

The greatest to ever do it has turned up to the biggest tournament in the world and smashed records on his way to the final

The most goals in assists in World Cup history. Now, and the chance to go back to back with a trophy, it was going to be hard to leave him out or even displace him in this team

Big props to Ismael Saibari though. he was Morocco's shiny light throughout the tournament, so much so he earned a big money

move to buy Munich from PSV. But I'm sure even if you asked him, he'd find it difficult to select

himself ahead of Messi. Video aside for a second though, here's a hypothetical question for you

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to learn more. Back to the video then and moving into the attacking third now, and it's probably

where the most controversy lies because there is no right answer. Has Michael Alisse been at his

absolute tip-top best? Probably not, but five assists during France's run to the semi-finals

is a pretty good return. He's not the one though and neither is Ismail Assar despite a very good

showing of four goals and one assist in four games for Senegal. It could have been Lamin-Yamal. I

think he's been good for Spain in a way where he's consistent threat and has actually carried

the ball forward more than any other attacker bar Lionel Messi in the tournament but he doesn't

quite have the goal contributions to back that all up It not the defining metric for a winger but when it comes up against a record like Ousmane Dembele it hard to argue for anyone else Dembele five goals and two assists in seven games saw him take arguably a similar share of the spotlight alongside Kylian Mbappe You could argue that he scored those five

in only three games but then again a World Cup hat-trick is hardly something to scoff at

From the right to the left and Leandro Trossard was incredibly instrumental for Belgium in their

run to the quarterfinals actually playing on both the left and the right side of the Red Devils

attacking three. Yandiamande was fun to watch, wasn't he? The group stage saw him complete over

10 chances and over 10 dribbles, so you can kind of see why so many clubs are linked with him and

want him. But alas, neither of those two take the top spot. Nope, that belongs to Julian Quinones

The Mexican winger was outrageously good. A combination of speed, skill, and a deadly eye

for goal that saw him back four times in Mexico's run to the last 16. Yes, you could throw the

argument out there that left wingers went further than he did, but if we're talking about how

individually good a player was for his team, who by the way did have a good tournament themselves

Quinonez has got to be there for me. I mean his goal scoring exploits saw him score more goals

than games in the Saudi Pro League, finishing first above Tony and Cristiano Ronaldo in the

goal scoring charts. So maybe his scoring should have been no surprise, but still, what a tournament

Lastly, but not least, here we go with the central striker, from which you could pick any of the big

guns with Sean in front of goal. Mbappe scored a ridiculous eight times with three assists to boot

which means with 20 goals across three World Cups, he'll move past Lino Messi at the next one without doubt and take the record for himself

And maybe I'm being a bit harsh here, but he's not the one I'm going for. Neither is Harry Kane

I'll admit I'm one of his biggest fans and he's done wonders for England throughout the tournament

but Bellingham has done more and the others have scored more. So that's basically what I'm going off

I do feel harsh not picking Oyathabel for Spain, though. He's definitely got his unsung hero vibe about him

Without his goals, Spain wouldn't have made it all the way to the final showpiece. You could argue for every one of these forwards, and to be honest, there is no right answer

but I'll go for Erling Haaland. I think it's a mixture of his goals, seven of them in five games

the fact that he was playing for a nation not expected to mix it with the big boys

but still made the quarterfinals, and he single-handedly put Brazil to the sword in the round prior

Like I said, no wrong choices, but Haaland's first tournament didn't seem to faze him at all

World class. So that's all for my team of the tournament. Let me know who you agreed with, completely disagreed with

and who you would have had in the comments section below. Thank you