Quick Answer
The 2026 World Cup is almost certainly the last World Cup for Lionel Messi (38), Luka Modrić (40), and several other players who have defined the past fifteen years of international football. For the first time, we know we are watching the end — not just of careers, but of an era that may never be repeated.
Follow every moment of their final campaign. Build your 2026 World Cup bracket at CupRoute and track the players you want to see go all the way.
Is the 2026 World Cup Messi's last?
Yes — almost certainly. Lionel Messi will be 38 years old during the 2026 World Cup. He has not ruled out playing, and his form at Inter Miami in Major League Soccer has remained extraordinary by any objective measure. But Messi himself has acknowledged that this tournament is his final realistic chance to add a second World Cup winners' medal to the one he lifted in Qatar in 2022.
The 2026 tournament carries a particular weight for Messi for exactly this reason. He already has everything the game can offer — every individual award, every club honour, and now the one he spent the longest chasing. What 2026 gives him is the chance to write a final chapter. To become the only player in history to win the World Cup twice as a captain. To end the conversation about the greatest footballer of all time in the most emphatic way possible.
Whether he is fit and firing for three weeks in June and July is a different question. Argentina's setup under Lionel Scaloni has been deliberately designed to function both with and without Messi at his peak — Julián Álvarez and Enzo Fernández are legitimate world-class performers in their own right. If Messi is available and healthy, Argentina become co-favourites. If he is managing minutes, the team can still contend.
But the wider truth is this: we have spent fifteen years watching Lionel Messi at World Cups and wondering if this was the time he finally won one. In 2026, we will be watching him knowing it is the last time. That changes the emotional register of every match he plays in.
Is the 2026 World Cup Luka Modrić's last?
Almost certainly. Luka Modrić turned 40 in September 2025, making him the oldest outfield player expected to feature at the tournament. He has been Croatia's heartbeat and captain for over a decade — the man who dragged them to the 2018 World Cup final in Russia and won the Ballon d'Or that year, the man who orchestrated their third-place finish in Qatar in 2022.
Modrić has said he will make a decision about international retirement after the tournament. At 40, in a demanding 39-day competition that could require him to play eight matches, the question is not just whether he is still good enough — he is — but whether his body can sustain the load across the full tournament.
Croatia are in Group L alongside England, Ghana and Panama. Their opening match against England on 17 June in Dallas is a rematch of their 2018 semi-final — the night Modrić's Croatia broke English hearts in Moscow. For English fans, it is a chance at revenge. For Modrić, it is one of the last significant stages on which he will perform.
Whether Croatia can go deep in the knockout rounds is uncertain. What is certain is that when Modrić walks off the pitch for the last time in a Croatia shirt, it will mark the end of one of the most distinguished international careers in European football history.
Who else could be playing their last World Cup in 2026?
Several other players from the generation that dominated world football between 2010 and 2026 are likely to retire from international football after this tournament.
Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal, age 41) — Ronaldo's inclusion in Portugal's squad has been the subject of significant debate as the tournament approaches. At 41, he is the oldest major international player of the era. Whether or not he features in North America, the 2026 World Cup represents either his last tournament or the close of his chapter — Portugal's coaching staff and squad have been transitioning to a new generation built around Rafael Leão, Bernardo Silva and João Neves.
Luis Suárez (Uruguay, age 39) — The veteran Uruguayan forward has been one of international football's most consistently dangerous attackers for nearly two decades. Uruguay's Group H draw — alongside Spain, Saudi Arabia and Cabo Verde — will test whether Suárez has enough in the tank to contribute at the highest level one final time.
Robert Lewandowski (Poland) — Poland did not qualify for the 2026 World Cup, meaning Lewandowski's international career has ended without the World Cup final he deserved. His absence is one of the tournament's most significant omissions.
Karim Benzema — likewise absent. The Ballon d'Or winner's fractured relationship with the French national team means he will not feature, despite being at a club level where he can still perform.
Virgil van Dijk (Netherlands, age 34) — van Dijk has flagged this as likely his final major international tournament. At 34, he remains one of the world's best centre-backs and a crucial organising presence for a Dutch side that could go deep in the knockout rounds.
Why does the 2026 World Cup feel like the end of an era?
Because it genuinely is.
The past fifteen years of international football have been shaped by a handful of individuals whose talent was so far beyond the norm that it distorted our sense of what was possible. Messi. Ronaldo. Modrić. They have been the reference points — the players against whom everyone else was measured, the players who made moments that will still be talked about in fifty years.
The 2026 World Cup will not be defined by their absence. They are still here, still playing, still capable of extraordinary things. But for the first time, we know it is ending. We know that in four years' time — at the 2030 World Cup — almost none of these players will still be competing. The window is closing.
That gives this tournament a quality that the statistics and the bracket cannot fully capture. There is a finality to it. A last chance for history, not just for the teams competing, but for the era of football that has produced the most gifted individuals any of us have ever seen.
Watch them while you can.
Build your 2026 World Cup bracket at CupRoute. Pick Messi's Argentina, Modrić's Croatia, or whoever you think lifts the trophy in New Jersey on 19 July — and see how the story ends.