First is the generation of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo - icons of world football, both of whom have participated in the World Cup for the sixth time. With Messi, I think he entered this tournament with a fairly comfortable attitude because he has almost all the noble titles in his career. World Cup, Copa America or the biggest individual titles have all been conquered.
Ronaldo is a bit different. The World Cup is still the title he lacks. The desire to conquer is certainly still very great, but age has more or less created certain limits. Although both Messi and Ronaldo are extremely professional players, I think it is very difficult to expect them to create brilliant performances like their peak period.
In my opinion, the most important thing at this time lies in the way coaches use them. Maybe their ability is no longer at the highest level, but being put on the field at the right time, playing with appropriate time and being replaced reasonably will bring much greater efficiency. Besides, the hot weather conditions at this year's World Cup will also significantly affect players who have stepped onto the other side of their careers.
The next generation is players born in the early 1990s, typically Harry Kane. I think that the current England team is completely worthy of being in the group of top candidates for the championship. If about a decade ago people often called English football "paper lions", possessing an attractive league but the national team was not commensurate, then in recent years things have changed.
The England team is really strong and continuously advances deep in major tournaments. What I regret is that under Gareth Southgate, they sometimes did not fully develop their inherent strength. Southgate is a coach who favors safety, while fans always want to see an England team play more liberally and energetically.
I expect Thomas Tuchel to bring that change. He has bold decisions in personnel selection and seems to be aiming for a more balanced, more ambitious and higher-intensity England team. Whether they can win the championship or not still needs many other factors, but I believe England will bring a new face at this World Cup.
In the younger generation, the most prominent names in my opinion are Lamine Yamal and Kylian Mbappe. These are not only the two leading stars in the world today but also represent two major powers of European football, Spain and France.
In recent important confrontations between the two teams, Spain has always been the winning team. From EURO to the Nations League, Lamine Yamal has left his mark against France. At the present time, I still rate Spain as slightly better thanks to the uniformity and stability in their playing style.
Luis de la Fuente is doing his job very well. He owns a deep team, still inspired by the EURO championship and especially understands his students very well because he has led many of them from youth teams.
In terms of enjoyment, I still prefer watching Lamine Yamal play more. In the context of increasingly pragmatic modern football, players like Yamal always bring a special feeling. His timely recovery from injury to attend the World Cup is good news for many football lovers.
Mbappe is an extremely effective player, like a scoring machine. But Yamal brings more emotions with improvisation and unpredictable moments. In my opinion, this is a special player of world football today and can completely create things that we have never witnessed in the future.
