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The Premier League starts on Friday.
That sentence feels a little strange when the World Cup final was only on July 19.
The league actually pushed the start of this season back by a week to create more recovery time after the World Cup. Even then, there are only 33 days between the final and the opening weekend.
Thirty-three days sounds reasonable until you remember that not every player got thirty-three days off.
Some went deep into the World Cup. Some had injuries to deal with afterwards. Some returned later than teammates who were eliminated earlier. Then there are medical tests, preseason travel, new coaches, new signings and the basic problem of trying to make eleven people play like they have been together for months.
Liverpool might be the clearest example right now.
Virgil van Dijk said this week that the club's new-look defence simply needs time. Ibrahima Konate and Andy Robertson have gone, Joe Gomez picked up a muscle injury, while Ronald Araujo and Jeremy Jacquet are still learning how to play alongside their new teammates.
The problem is Liverpool do not get a month to figure it out. They open away at Newcastle on Sunday.
Manchester City are dealing with a different version of the same problem. Pep Guardiola is gone, Enzo Maresca is taking over a team that finished second last season, major pieces of the old group have moved on, and the squad is still being reshaped while the season is about to begin.
Manchester United have their own unfinished business. Marcus Rashford is back after 18 months away on loan, but even days before the opening weekend his long-term future is still not completely clear.
None of this necessarily means these clubs have had bad summers.
Maybe this is just what August looks like now.
We still talk about preseason as if clubs disappear in May, spend three quiet months building a finished team and then arrive on opening weekend ready to reveal it.
That version of football does not really exist after a 48-team World Cup.
Players returned at different times. Squads are still changing. Some players have barely had enough training sessions to learn where their new teammates want the ball.
And yet the expectations have not changed at all.
The calendar increasingly forces teams to use competitive matches as part of the rebuilding process, but football culture still expects the finished product on Matchday 1.
Maybe fans need to get used to August teams that actually look like August teams: a little less organised, a few combinations that are not quite there yet, and players being managed rather than immediately playing 90 minutes every week.
The alternative is rushing everybody back because the league table does not care how many days you had off.
So what would you rather see from your club this month?
Start slightly undercooked and build into the season - or put the strongest possible XI out immediately, even if some players clearly have not had enough recovery time?

A 5-2 preseason win is not normally something to overanalyse, but Barcelona's game in Basel gave a pretty useful preview of what Hansi Flick is going to be dealing with this season.

Karim Adeyemi scored on his first Barça start and added an assist. Jesse Bisiwu came on late and scored twice. Anthony Gordon made his debut from the start. Then Lamine Yamal returned from his post-World Cup break and still managed a goal and an assist in about half an hour.

The obvious reaction is that Barça suddenly have a ridiculous number of ways to attack. Yamal and Raphinha can still decide games from wide areas, but Gordon gives them a more direct runner, Adeyemi can threaten space behind a defence, and Bisiwu looks happy attacking one-on-one. It is a different kind of depth from simply having two players for every position.

That matters because the squad has changed in the other direction too. Ferran Torres has left for Paris, while Ronald Araujo has gone on loan to Liverpool. So this is not just Barcelona adding a few exciting names to the same team. Flick is reshaping where the depth sits.

Basel also showed why the first few weeks may be awkward. Several players who went deep at the World Cup are still being reintroduced. Yamal, Dani Olmo and Pau Cubarsí all came on later, while Gordon was already starting. Preseason chemistry is being built at different speeds depending on when each player returned.

The interesting question is what happens when everyone is fully available. Barça were at their best last season when the front line had clear roles and the press behind it was coordinated. More pace and more individual threat should make them harder to defend, but it also gives Flick more decisions about who stays wide, who attacks the box and who gets left out.

And that may be the real story of this summer. The 5-2 scoreline was fun, but the new season will not be decided by how many attacking options Barcelona have. It will be decided by whether those options still look like one team when the games get tighter.

So where are you on this: is Barça building the deepest attack in Europe, or a squad that could actually become harder to balance?

Maybe the strangest thing about watching Argentina lose this final was that it didn’t really feel like 2014.

Back then, losing the World Cup final felt like another chapter in the whole miserable “Messi can’t do it for Argentina” conversation. Every missed chance became evidence. Every sad photo of him became a debate. People genuinely acted like his entire international career was somehow incomplete.

That argument is dead now.

He won the Copa América. He won the World Cup. Argentina became champions again with him at the centre of everything.

So watching a 39-year-old Messi lose another World Cup final in 2026 felt different.

It was sad, obviously. But it didn’t feel like failure.

If anything, it felt like the first time Argentina were being forced to look at the question they’ve managed to avoid for years:

What happens when he’s finally not there?

And to be clear, nobody needs to pretend we know exactly when that happens. I’m not writing his retirement announcement for him. Messi could keep playing for Argentina. He might not. That’s his decision.

But football-wise, the transition has already started.

This Argentina team is not “Messi and ten other guys” anymore. It hasn’t been for a long time.

Dibu Martínez has his own mythology now. Lautaro has become a genuine big-moment player. Enzo Fernández, Mac Allister and the rest of that midfield have played huge tournament matches without needing Messi to dominate every minute.

Scaloni built an actual team around him, not just a stage for him.

And yet the final showed why replacing Messi isn’t really about replacing Messi.

Spain basically shut Argentina out of the game. Two shots in 120 minutes. No rhythm. No sustained pressure. Dibu kept them alive for as long as he could, and you still found yourself waiting for the same thing Argentina fans have been waiting for since about 2006:

Messi will do something.

One pass. One dribble. One free kick. One moment where the entire match suddenly stops obeying normal rules.

Against England in the semifinal, he did exactly that again, setting up both goals in the late comeback that sent Argentina to another final.

Against Spain, the moment never came.

And maybe that is the real post-Messi problem.

Argentina can replace goals.

They can replace a position.

They can probably even find another No.10 eventually.

What they can’t easily replace is 20 years of everyone in the stadium believing that one person can still rescue any game.

That belief changes the way teammates play. It changes the way opponents defend. It changes the mood of an entire country when there are five minutes left and nothing is happening.

Messi has already given Argentina the ending he was supposed to have. Qatar fixed that forever.

Maybe that’s why this loss feels almost strangely honest.

No second consecutive World Cup. No perfect farewell with another trophy. Just one last reminder — whether this was actually his last World Cup match or not — that football doesn’t owe even its greatest player a scripted ending.

The interesting part now isn’t another GOAT debate.

It’s whether Argentina have built something strong enough to survive the day when everybody finally stops waiting for Messi to save them.

And honestly, I think that might be Scaloni’s hardest job yet.

really happy to join Hisense Football Zone, hope we have fun chat during the world cup