ONE's readers have delivered their own verdict on the best player of the 2026 World Cup — and it isn't the man who took home the Golden Boot or FIFA's official Golden Ball. In a poll of the Israeli sports site's audience, Lionel Messi was voted the tournament's outstanding performer, finishing clear of Kylian Mbappé, Rodri and Jude Bellingham despite Argentina falling short in the final.
Messi collected 36% of the vote, comfortably ahead of the field. ONE credits the Argentine captain, now 39, with eight goals and four assists over the tournament, involvement in a dozen goals in total and a new World Cup record for assists — a remarkable return for a player at the tail end of his career, even in a losing cause.
Mbappé finished second in the reader poll with 24%, despite arriving with the stronger paper case: the France captain scored 10 goals to claim the tournament's Golden Boot outright, two clear of Messi, and set a new World Cup scoring record along the way.
Rodri was third with 21% of the vote. The Spanish midfielder was FIFA's actual pick as player of the tournament, winning the Golden Ball after anchoring a Spain side that conceded remarkably little across the competition on their way to the title.
Bellingham rounded out the poll in fourth on 19%, having scored seven goals and added an assist as England reached the semi-final stage before finishing third — a strong individual tournament that still couldn't match the drama attached to Messi's name.
The poll comes against the backdrop of a final Messi will want to forget on the scoresheet, if not for the occasion itself. Spain beat Argentina in extra time, with Ferran Torres scoring the winner as Messi and his teammates were denied a second successive world title.
That Messi still walked away with the reading public's vote, ahead of the tournament's official individual honours, says as much about his enduring pull with fans as it does about the numbers behind his campaign. He arrived in this World Cup as an elder statesman and leaves it having outscored every outfield player bar the Golden Boot winner himself.
For ONE's audience, at least, the story of the tournament remained Messi's — a poll result that reflects sentiment as much as statistics, but one that underlines just how much of the conversation around this World Cup he continued to command, all the way to a final he didn't win.
