The European Championship and the Copa América, two tournaments separated by sea but united by a common love, prepare a celebration of football – or football, or football – with few precedents. Together, when they kick off on Friday and June 20 respectively, they will elevate 40 men’s teams to stages surpassed only by the World Cup. They will present the sport the 16 best international teams and 23 of the top 25. They will fill American TV screens from dawn to dusk. On July 14th, five hours apart, for the first time on the same day, they will be crowned champions.
And along the way, they will likely crown a third champion – this year’s Ballon d’Or.
Together, they will help answer a question that seems more open-ended than ever: Who is the best football player in the world?
For more than a decade, Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo have held that title. Between approximately 2008 and 2020, until Ronaldo’s decline, they maintained an undisputed duopoly at the top of sport.
Now perhaps 36-year-old Messi’s legs are clinging to the throne; or, perhaps, he is vacant.
Messi extended his reign to the 2021 Copa América and the 2022 World Cup. But he has spent the last 12 months in Major League Soccer. His supposed successor, Kylian Mbappé, has spent the last 12 months mired in a messy divorce with PSG, still lighting up France but faltering in the Champions League.
Meanwhile, the world’s top three club competitions have named their rookie players of the year for 2023-24. Jude Bellingham won the award in Spain; Phil Foden won in England. Vinicius Junior won the Champions League prize as he led Real Madrid to another title with Bellingham.
But was Bellingham’s dream debut campaign a bit haphazard? Was it the start of a decade of world conquest or simply a strong season embellished by a run of goals?
Is Foden a bona fide superstar or were he, Rodri and Erling Haaland only included in this conversation by Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City machine?
This summer should answer these questions.
Vinicius, for example, entered the conversation with three electric, challenging and productive seasons in Spain, but… what did he do for Brazil? He scored three goals and four assists in 28 appearances for the national team.
The conversation, therefore, must start with the incumbents – even if it doesn’t end there.
Messi is the GOAT and has re-emerged from a statistical decline to the height of his powers in 2022. In 22 pre-World Cup games for club and country that autumn, he scored 1.54 non-penalty goals plus assists per 90 minutes, on pace for the second best mark of his brilliant career. Then, of course, he shone more than ever in Qatar and won the head-to-head with Mbappé in the final.
Now, he’s tearing up MLS at absurd and unparalleled rates, with a 1.83 non-penalty G+A/90 in the league this season, by FBref. But the argument in favor of Messi is no longer numerical. His last three years in Europe were merely elite, not stratospheric; they couldn’t compare to Mbappé’s. Their numbers in MLS cannot be compared, because their opponents are much inferior. So the argument is that on any given day, no other player can deceive defenders and conjure magical, swinging games like Messi.
But can he still do all this as before, at the highest level?
The Copa América is Messi’s first real chance in over a year to prove the answer is yes.
Otherwise, Mbappé is the heir to the throne, and more or less has been since 2018. At 19 that year, he won the World Cup and then compiled his first of six absurd seasons at PSG. In each of the six, from 2018 to 2024, he surpassed 1.0 npG+A/90. (Messi concluded his two years in Paris with 0.88.) Mbappé destroyed opponents with each of football’s most valuable skills – speed, strength, intelligence, dexterity on the ball, audacity and lethal finishing.
But until now, he has rarely ventured outside of France. He has never won a Ballon d’Or and, until last year, had never finished in the top three – in part because he played most of his matches in Ligue 1, the fifth-best domestic circuit in the world. (And because PSG have never won the Champions League; the award, although an individual honor, often rewards team success.)
Mbappé’s international exploits suggest that he is indeed an “off-the-planet player” and probably the best in the world today. He is on track to break almost every World Cup record imaginable and is closing in on the milestone as France’s all-time top scorer – at just 25 years old.
So, it enters the Euro as the default answer. He doesn’t need to take the throne; he just needs to remind everyone that he holds it.
But if he doesn’t, a future teammate could take advantage of him. Vini Jr. is the 2024 Ballon d’Or favorite and, according to many experts – including Thierry Henry, Mbappé’s compatriot and aspiring Olympic coach – the best player in the world “right now”. He is the best 1v1 dribbler in the game. Over the past three seasons, he has added goals and assists to his signature talent. The fact that he has produced so well and consistently across multiple roles and formations suggests that his talent is scheme-proof and his success is sustainable.
His barrier to the throne, in a way, was Neymar. Wearing Brazil’s yellow jersey, Vini has always been placed in the background – until now. Neymar is injured. Vini is the guy. It can drag a relatively common Selection back to the top of the Americas?
At the Euro, two Englishmen and a Spaniard were also able to give their opinion. Bellingham and Foden, at 20 and 23, have put up elite goal-creating numbers in 2023-24 while also contributing as advanced defenders. And Rodri was the rock at the heart of Man City, a maestro, destroyer and occasional goalscorer all rolled into one.
In general, it is difficult to compare two-way midfielders with out-of-this-world attackers. It is also more difficult to extract them from systems and context. If Rodri or Bellingham were placed in a mid-table team like Manchester United or Real Betis, would they elevate that team as much as Mbappé?
It is generally accepted that strikers – the creators of goals – are the most valuable players in the sport.
But the Euros and Copa América, with each player placed in a new system and context, will be revealing.
