2026. World Cup year. Football’s biggest party returns to North and/or Central America for the third time and first since 1994, and on each previous occasions it’s been one of South America’s two great heavyweights, Argentina and Brazil, that have headed north and won the tournament.

Four from four? It’s possible, but not necessarily likely, according to esteemed South America football journalist Tim Vickery. For so long a football nation with history on its side – winning five of 12 World Cups between 1958-2002 – Brazil suddenly find themselves feeling the opposite, their World Cup record somewhat troubled over the past twenty years.

Argentina, in contrast, finally summited the mountain for their long-awaited third time in 2022, and remain under the leadership of Lionels Scaloni and Messi. Here they must stare down history of a different kind; no nation has defended the World Cup in over sixty years, since Brazil in 1962.

‘I’ve come into the new year with nearly exactly the same enthusiasm that I had when I was eight at the start of 1974. Thinking ‘it’s a World Cup year, it’s a World Cup year.’ Yeah, there are a few things about this particular World Cup that leave a bad taste in the mouth, but nevertheless, there’s plenty to look forward to’, Vickery told Box2Box.

Even in the strongest World Cups it’s unpalatable for Brazil to miss the knockout stages, and they should have little issue finishing at least second in a group of Morocco, Haiti and Scotland. Where it’s become sticky since 2002 has been the quarter-finals, falling at that hurdle in four of their past five copa do mundos.

‘They haven’t got close [to winning recently], and their only semi-final appearance in that run of 24 years, they probably don’t want me to talk about. Every time since they won in 2002 that they’ve come up against a European side in a knockout stage, they’ve been eliminated,’ said Vickery.

‘That’s one of the reasons they’ve gone for Carlo Ancelotti [as manager]. It is a fascinating challenge. Of all the great club coaches, I think it’s easier for Ancelotti to make the transition to a national team coach than it is for most others, because I don’t think he’s a ‘details man’ in terms of a certain tactical project.

‘In fact, he doesn’t want that, and says explicitly he doesn’t want his teams to have an identity because then they’re too easily countered. So, he’s a coach of great flexibility who will work with the resources at his disposal – but he has very little time, you know. Very little time.’

A World Cup win would be an extraordinary (and nearing his late 60s, perhaps final) act as Ancelotti works into the later stages of his managerial career. As the only man to win five Champions Leagues – two clear of next-best Bill Paisley’s three – and each of Europe’s top five domestic leagues, he has nothing left to prove.

Only international football stands unconquered. Winning 26 caps for Italy through his playing days, he served as Azzurri assistant manager from 1992-95 before commencing club management. Within that stint was Italy’s run to the final at USA ‘94, when they lost to Brazil on a stiflingly hot day in Pasadena.

‘He’s quietly confident. He thinks he’s got a couple of very, very good goalkeepers, some fabulous centre backs. He thinks he’s got one or two good players in midfield, although not as many as he’d probably like, and he thinks he’s got fantastic talent up front.

‘And, he’s really enjoying the atmosphere of the national team… which can come as a pleasant surprise, I think, to a European coach. Sometimes for European players the national team can be a bit of a drag.

‘But for Brazilians, because they play in multinational, multicultural dressing rooms, the idea of coming back and being amongst their own – being able to talk their own language, sing their own songs, tell their own jokes – Ancelotti is feeding off that and enjoying that.

‘He’ll try and channel that into a successful World Cup campaign. But he is well aware there are only two outcomes in this job. Either you win the World Cup and you are a success, or you don’t win the World Cup and you are a failure. That’s the way it is with Brazil.’

Argentina arrived at the 2022 World Cup with the clock seemingly ticking on Lionel Messi’s international career. For all he’d achieved, there was a sense his nation could never truly accept him as Diego Maradona’s equal without having lifted the World Cup.

Manager Lionel Scaloni hardly seemed the man to help him get there; the seven-cap international’s only managerial experience was as assistant at Sevilla, before he was appointed co-caretaker in 2018. He’d led them to third at the 2019 Copa; he was nobody’s idea of a name big enough for La Albiceleste.

Now eying 2026 Scaloni is not just still in charge, but is cultivating legend status. The Qatar triumph sits alongside back-to-back Copa America titles (2021 & 2024), the first of which broke a 28 year drought in the continental competition. The second took them back past Uruguay into outright first, with 16 titles.

‘It’s absolutely extraordinary. When he took over after the 2018 World Cup it was for one reason and one reason alone: he was cheap! They didn’t have any money. They had to pay off a long-term contract to Jorge Sampaoli, who really didn’t work at all.

‘I remember Maradona saying at the time: ‘he’s a nice enough bloke, Scaloni, but you wouldn’t hire him to direct traffic, let alone be the coach of the national team.’ And, how impressive he’s been.’

There is no doubt Scaloni’s understated nature and apparently non-existent ego have served him well in working with the borderline-divine figure of Messi. As Vickery explains, his tenure has coincided with a hungrier, more driven, and perhaps more mature denouement of Messi’s international career.

‘There has been an element of joint management. Scaloni’s good fortune was that around the 2019 Copa, his first tournament, Messi was starting to fall out with Barcelona and Argentina became his number one priority. Crucial to this story is that Messi came on board with Argentina in a way that had never happened before’ he said.

‘In that Copa they lost in the semis, right at the end – but the journos there were saying ‘it’s a completely different Messi’. His introverted nature, quiet and reserved, [previously] could have an intimidating, negative effect on the younger players. Suddenly Messi was on board as a vocal, encouraging presence, and that has made all the difference.

‘Now, they’ve developed ways of playing without Messi… I’ll have to whisper this a little bit, but in the final of that Copa when they beat Colombia (2024) they actually improved after Messi was substituted when he picked up an injury. Some of their best recent performances, the mauling of Brazil back in March, Messi was injured and not playing.’

Do they have the stocks to go again? Messi will turn 39 during the World Cup, and no longer has the indomitable Angel Di Maria alongside him, although the bulk of the starting eleven from the final in Qatar remain at Scaloni’s disposal.

‘They’re not as dependent on him as they were. That partnership now at Atletico Madrid between Thiago Almada and Julian Alvarez, that’s a good little partnership they’ve got there. But one or two problems: you cannot replace Di Maria. They’d hoped Alejandro Garnacho would be the man, but they haven’t really got a replacement.

‘The other, it’s the same defensive unit as it was last time. If you remember, even against Australia in the last World Cup, under pressure at the end, that defensive unit was creaking. With the extra knockout game, you tend to think that surely in one game, that could be their undoing this time around.

‘Morale is high, but let’s remember Argentina are trying to do something that has never been done in the history of football and retain the World Cup outside their home continent. So the odds are probably against them but when they hit form and that ball flies, they’re still a beautiful side to watch.’