{"id":769009,"date":"2026-06-29T14:37:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T14:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/769009\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T14:37:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T14:37:06","slug":"world-cup-2026-the-youngsters-making-a-big-impression-at-the-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/769009\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: The youngsters making a big impression at the World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s not just World Cup veterans Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo who have made their mark at the 2026 tournament – the next generation is also making a huge impression.<\/p>\n

Of the 85 players aged 21 or under selected to feature in the United States, Mexico and Canada, many have seized the moment and are playing without fear.<\/p>\n

Senegal’s Ibrahim Mbaye, aged 18 years and 143 days, became the fourth youngest goalscorer in World Cup history when he scored a late consolation for the Lions of Teranga in a 3-1 defeat by France<\/a> in New Jersey on 16 June.<\/p>\n

Five days later, Lamine Yamal (18 years and 343 days) popped up with Spain’s first in a 4-0 victory over Saudi Arabia in Atlanta.<\/p>\n

Other youngsters have flown under the radar.<\/p>\n

Mexico’s teenage attacking midfielder Gilberto Mora was not even born when Messi, Ronaldo and Luka Modric played at the 2006 World Cup.<\/p>\n

Mora became the youngest player to represent a home nation at the World Cup (17 years and 240 days) when he came on as a substitute in a 2-0 win over South Africa, the very first game of this tournament on 11 June.<\/p>\n

We already knew Lamine Yamal would be a key player at the World Cup.<\/p>\n

But who are the young breakout stars to emerge from the group stage? BBC Sport looks at five who have caught the eye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s not just World Cup veterans Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo who have made their mark at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-769009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}