{"id":249814,"date":"2026-06-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/24\/superstars-light-up-the-pitch-as-world-cup-enters-final-phase-of-the-group-stage-the-gist\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T00:00:00","slug":"superstars-light-up-the-pitch-as-world-cup-enters-final-phase-of-the-group-stage-the-gist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/24\/superstars-light-up-the-pitch-as-world-cup-enters-final-phase-of-the-group-stage-the-gist\/","title":{"rendered":"Superstars light up the pitch as World Cup enters final phase of the group stage | The GIST"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div><span class=\"copy-container-module--small--f809b\"><em>The final phase of the World Cup (WC) group stage starts today, with six games every day from now until Saturday. Buckle up.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u261d\ufe0f Here are the teams who have qualified for the knockout stage<\/strong> since our last newsletter: Argentina, France, Norway, and Colombia. Kudos.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\ud83d\ude31 Shockingly not on that list? <\/strong>Tourney favorite England, who would\u2019ve clinched with a win yesterday but couldn\u2019t dismantle Ghana\u2019s fierce defensive low block despite holding possession for 79% of the 0\u20130 draw.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2b50 Now let\u2019s get to the goals <\/strong>with many superstars shining bright on the WC stage. Yesterday, 41-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo silenced his doubters, netting two goals in Portugal\u2019s 5\u20130 thrashing of Uzbekistan and becoming the first player to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@foxsports\/video\/7654668724963691807\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">score in six WCs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\ud83d\udc10 And then there\u2019s Lionel Messi.<\/strong> The GOAT scored his 17th and 18th career WC goals on Monday, making him the top all-time WC goal scorer, man or woman. Don\u2019t mind us \u2014 just <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DZ5kDDpH4h9\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">manifesting Marta\u2019s resurgence<\/a> at the Women\u2019s WC one year from now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\ud83d\udc40 France\u2019s Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 is right on Messi\u2019s tail,<\/strong> with his career WC goal tally at 16 after scoring twice in Monday\u2019s 3\u20130 win over Iraq.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2728 With that, let\u2019s check on the Golden Boot race:<\/strong> Messi leads (5), followed by Mbapp\u00e9 plus Norway\u2019s Erling Haaland (4), and CanMNT\u2019s Jonathan David and Germany\u2019s Deniz Undav (3). Still plenty of f\u00fatbol to go.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\ud83d\udc4f Three groups are in action every day from now until Saturday,<\/strong> with all four teams in each group playing simultaneously to <a href=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/shorts\/IVrjSSsqRKE?si=z04desJn_iYAcUPB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">prevent game tampering<\/a>. As a reminder, the top two teams in each group advance to the Round of 32, in addition to the top eight third-place finishers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\ud83d\udcfa Keep an eye on the Group C matches<\/strong> <strong>today at 6 p.m. ET<\/strong>. Brazil and Morocco currently top the group with four points apiece, but Scotland (three points) trails narrowly and could shake things up if they can beat Brazil.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>\n  !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n  n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\n  n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n  t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\n  document,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n  fbq('init', '1716705275141133'); \/\/ Insert your pixel ID here.\n  fbq('track', 'PageView');\n      <\/script><script async defer src=\"https:\/\/platform.instagram.com\/en_US\/embeds.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thegistsports.com\/article\/world-cup-final-group-stage\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The final phase of the World Cup (WC) group stage starts today, with six games every day from now until Saturday. Buckle up. \u261d\ufe0f Here are the teams who have qualified for the knockout stage since our last newsletter: Argentina, France, Norway, and Colombia. Kudos. \ud83d\ude31 Shockingly not on that list? Tourney favorite England, who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":249815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6805],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-249814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-womens"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}