--- title: "ESPN Names Its Best and Most Disappointing Teams of the World Cup" description: "With the tournament over, ESPN has picked a best XI and a most disappointing XI from the 2026 World Cup. These are the broadcaster's editorial choices, not ours, and they are worth reporting for what they reveal about how the tournament was read: age, in both directions, is the theme." category: "Sports" category_url: https://newsparlor.com/category/sports author: "Liam Fitzgerald" published: 2026-07-21T04:33:19.000Z updated: 2026-07-21T04:33:19.000Z canonical: https://newsparlor.com/article/espn-names-its-best-and-most-disappointing-teams-of-the-world-cup tags: ["world-cup-2026", "football", "espn"] --- # ESPN Names Its Best and Most Disappointing Teams of the World Cup With the tournament over, ESPN has picked a best XI and a most disappointing XI from the 2026 World Cup. These are the broadcaster's editorial choices, not ours, and they are worth reporting for what they reveal about how the tournament was read: age, in both directions, is the theme. Every major tournament ends with the same ritual: someone picks the team of the tournament, and everyone else argues with it. ESPN has now done so for the 2026 World Cup, which Spain won, and has added the less common mirror-image exercise of a most disappointing XI. A necessary clarification before the names: these are [ESPN's selections](https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49401634/world-cup-best-xi-most-disappointing-xi-messi-mbappe), presented here as such. They are opinion, not fact, and newsparlor is reporting that a major outlet made these choices, not endorsing them. ## The best XI ESPN's team of the tournament runs, in its listing: Vozinha in goal; a back four of Djed Spence, Pau Cubarsí, Aymeric Laporte and Marc Cucurella; a midfield of Rodri, Ayyoub Bouaddi and Jude Bellingham; and a front three of Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland. The choices reflect the winners. Four of the eleven are Spanish, which is what usually happens to the team that lifts the trophy, and it includes Cubarsí, a 19-year-old defender, alongside the 32-year-old Laporte. The ages at the two ends of the pitch are the striking part. In goal, ESPN chose Vozinha of Cape Verde, who is 40 and who, the broadcaster notes, kept a clean sheet against Spain. In attack it picked Messi, 39, in what was his sixth World Cup. Between them sits Bouaddi of Morocco, who is 18 and switched his international allegiance from France. A team selected on the tournament's evidence turns out to span more than two decades of age. Two of the forwards carry their own footnotes. Bellingham is credited with seven goals from midfield. Haaland, on his World Cup debut with Norway, is noted as having matched a debut scoring record dating from 1974. ## The most disappointing XI The mirror team is the more unusual list, and ESPN populated it with recognisable names. In goal is Fernando Muslera of Uruguay, also 40, whom ESPN cites for three errors that led to goals. The defence is Joshua Kimmich, Virgil van Dijk, Marc Guéhi and Nico O'Reilly; the midfield Federico Valverde, Scott McTominay and Bruno Fernandes; the attack Florian Wirtz, Christian Pulisic and Neymar. The Neymar entry is the one that carries a point beyond the individual. ESPN notes that the Brazilian, now 34, played only 37 minutes across the whole tournament, which is less a criticism of his performance than of the decision to bring him at all. ## What the two lists say together Read side by side, the pairing makes an argument that no single XI could. The same quality, experience, is a strength in one column and a liability in the other. Vozinha and Messi are in the best XI in defiance of their age; Muslera and Neymar are in the disappointing one, arguably because of it. The difference is not the number on the birth certificate but whether the player could still meet the tournament's demands, and the two lists together are really a statement that this is unpredictable. That is the honest limit of any team-of-the-tournament exercise, and it is to ESPN's credit that publishing the disappointing XI alongside the good one makes the limit visible. A best XI implies these were always going to be the best players. The disappointing XI is a reminder that most of the names on it were, before the tournament, exactly the sort of players expected to make the other list. ## Sources - [World Cup best XI and most disappointing XI](https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49401634/world-cup-best-xi-most-disappointing-xi-messi-mbappe)