From Saturday, 16 teams will battle it out for a place in the quarter-finals after the round of 32 games of the ongoing 2026 FIFA World Cup, jointly hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, were completed on Friday.

Some players and teams entered the record books at the national level, while others rewrote the tournament’s history, some by equalling or surpassing records for goals, assists, yellow and red cards, and clean sheets.

Top scorers

Lionel Messi’s opener for Argentina against debutants Cape Verde in their round of 32 fixture on Friday makes him the leading scorer at the ongoing tournament, with seven goals, one ahead of France’s Kylian Mbappé, after four games. 

Messi, with 20 goals, also leads the all-time World Cup scorers chart, closely followed by Mbappé, with 18 goals, both overtaking Germany’s Miroslav Klose, who, before now, held the record of 16 goals since the 2014 edition.

England’s Harry Kane and Norway’s Erling Haaland are both on five goals with the same number of games, while France’s Ousmane Dembélé, Spain’s Mikel Oyarzabal, Senegal’s Ismaila Sarr, and Brazil’s Vinicius Junior have scored four each.

With the round of 16, quarter-final, semi-final, and final yet to play, Mbappé and Messi will also be looking to equal or smash the 68-year-old record of France’s Just Fontaine, who, in only one World Cup, scored 13 goals in just six matches in 1958.

Top assists

France’s Michael Olise is leading the assist rankings at the ongoing tournament, with five in four games. He’s also joint second in the all-time assist ranking for a single World Cup, one behind Diego Maradona of Argentina’s record of six in a single World Cup set in 1970.

With more knockout matches still to play, he is poised to equal and even break the 56-year-old record. Brazil’s Bruno Guimarães, who is currently the only player with four assists, also has the opportunity to achieve the feat.

Players currently with three assists are Germany’s Florian Wirtz, Mexico’s Roberto Alvarado, Norway’s Martin Ødegaard, and Sweden’s Alexander Isak.

Clean sheets

Spain: Unai Simón is one of the two goalkeepers yet to concede a goal after four matches.

During Spain’s 3-0 victory over Austria on Thursday, he broke former Italy goalkeeper Walter Zenga’s 36-year-old record (1990/517 consecutive minutes) of not conceding a goal, dating back to Qatar 2022.

The last time Spain conceded a goal in the World Cup was 39 minutes before the end of the regulation time of their third Group E match against Japan on December 1, 2022, which they lost 2-1. 

Their next match was in the round of 16 against Morocco on December 6, 2022, which ended goalless after 120 minutes. They, however, lost 3-0 on penalties and crashed out of the tournament.

Mexico, the first country to host three World Cup editions, set another World Cup record by becoming the first team since Italy in 1990 to open a tournament with four consecutive clean sheets.

It’s also the first time in their history they will win four consecutive matches in a single World Cup and do so to advance to the round of 32 and round of 16, especially without conceding a goal. 

After four matches, goalkeeper Raúl Rangel jointly leads the clean sheet list with four. He has now broken Mexico’s record set by Ignacio Calderón, who had three consecutive clean sheets at the 1970 edition when they hosted it. Out of 19 matches played for Mexico, Rangel didn’t concede in 12.

Mexico and Rangel will have the opportunity to extend the records in the round of 16, on Sunday, against England, at the Estadio Azteca, where they are unbeaten in ten World Cup matches (seven wins, three draws), spanning three different World Cup cycles when they hosted it: 1970, 1986 and 2026 editions.

Mexico have not conceded a goal at the stadium since March 2023, when they played out a 2-2 draw against Jamaica in a CONCACAF Nations League match.

Yellow cards 

The 2026 World Cup, which will feature 104 matches, has already seen referees dish out 214 yellow cards. With the round of 16, quarter-final, semi-final, and final yet to be played, the ongoing tournament is on course to break the 227 record set in Qatar 2022, when the 1998 record of 226 yellow cards was also smashed. Both tournaments had 64 matches each.

In the ongoing edition, Paraguay, who will face France in the round of 16 on Saturday in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, have the most yellow cards so far, with nine in four matches. They are closely followed by Ecuador and Egypt, which have eight each, while Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, Curaçao, and Haiti have seven each.

Argentina currently have the highest accumulated number of yellow cards in a single World Cup tournament, with 17 bookings during the 2022 edition in Qatar, which they eventually won.

Red cards

Referees at the ongoing World Cup have already issued 12 red cards, but are still far behind the 28 handed out in Germany 2006. However, this edition has already witnessed more red cards than the last two editions combined (2018 and 2022, four each).

The tie between Mexico and South Africa set the record for the most red cards (three) in a World Cup opening match. The match was also one red card short of the record set in the round-of-16 clash between Portugal and the Netherlands in 2006, when four red cards were shown (two each).

In this ongoing edition, South Africa and Qatar each have two red cards. Since both teams have crashed out of the tournament, they won’t be able to match the record set by Cameroon in 1990, when they became the first and only team so far to be issued the most red cards (three) in a single World Cup.

Meanwhile, eight teams have been issued a red card each: Paraguay, Ecuador, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Uruguay, the U.S.A., Belgium, Iraq, and Mexico.

The most red cards in a single World Cup match were issued during the round-of-16 clash between Portugal and the Netherlands in 2006. Both teams received two red cards each.