{"id":447294,"date":"2026-05-18T07:11:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T07:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/447294\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T07:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T07:11:12","slug":"rising-star-to-global-icon-who-could-be-the-2026-world-cups-breakout-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/447294\/","title":{"rendered":"Rising star to global icon: who could be the 2026 World Cup\u2019s breakout player?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">World Cups are where rising stars of football quickly transform into global icons.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Here is a look at five of the contenders to become the game\u2019s next superstar at this year\u2019s finals in the United States, Mexico and Canada.<\/p>\n<p>Nico Paz (Argentina)<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The son of former Argentine international Pablo Paz has opted to play for the world champions despite being born and raised in Spain.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Paz, who was a rising star in the Real Madrid academy, has flourished working under Cesc Fabregas since a move to Como in Italy two years ago.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Madrid are reportedly set to exercise their buy-back option on the 21-year-old after his technical ability and eye for goal from range have alerted Europe\u2019s other top clubs.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Paz could have the daunting task of filling in for Lionel Messi with Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni expected to manage the 38-year-old\u2019s minutes during the champions\u2019 title defence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World Cups are where rising stars of football quickly transform into global icons. Here is a look at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[9877,1998,1083,444,10272,2226,170,85,46,2971,16261,28126,2617,4029,2727,105,1032,6866],"class_list":["post-447294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-argentina","tag-barcelona","tag-brazil","tag-england","tag-euro","tag-france","tag-germany","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-italy","tag-la-liga","tag-lyon","tag-manchester-city","tag-real-madrid","tag-spain","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}