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Published 12:14 07 Jul 2026 GMT
Lionel Messi has not eaten pizza or drunk a soda in 12 years.
He starts every morning with yerba mate from a gourd he has carried with him since childhood.
He has scored 20 World Cup goals - more than any man in history - and he turned 39 three days before the crowd at AT&T Stadium chanted his name so loudly that he could hear it on the bench.
He is, by any reasonable measure, not supposed to still be doing this.
But here he is, leading the 2026 World Cup Golden Boot race with eight goals, playing in his record sixth tournament, and lining up against Egypt in the round of 16 today in Atlanta.
Argentina have won all five of their games so far. Messi has scored in eight consecutive World Cup matches - a run that has no historical precedent in the men's game.
Even his rivals cannot quite believe it.
After Messi scored a hat trick against Algeria on the opening day - breaking Cristiano Ronaldo's record as the oldest player to score a World Cup hat trick in the process - Erling Haaland, who had scored twice himself earlier that afternoon, posted a single reaction on Snapchat: "Messi is a madman."
The question everyone keeps asking is how.
In 2014, Messi was a different player physically.
He was plagued by recurring vomiting episodes during matches and persistent soft-tissue injuries.
His diet at the time included chocolate, fizzy drinks, and regular fast food.
His then-manager Pep Guardiola told him bluntly that if he wanted to extend his career at the highest level, pizza and carbonated drinks had to go permanently.
Messi listened, and he has not touched either in 12 years.
He began working with Italian nutritionist Giuliano Poser, who stripped the diet back to five core categories: water, extra virgin olive oil, whole grains, fresh fruit, and fresh vegetables.
Refined sugars and processed flour were eliminated entirely.
His daily intake now revolves around lean proteins - particularly roasted chicken with root vegetables, prepared with minimal salt and a drizzle of olive oil, which he has described as his favourite meal.
He eats fresh fish regularly, uses olive oil as his primary cooking fat, and focuses on low-GI carbohydrates that release energy slowly rather than spiking blood sugar.
The results were almost immediate.
Within months of overhauling his diet, the vomiting stopped, the soft-tissue injuries became less frequent, and his body composition visibly changed.
It is a different approach to the one taken by Haaland, whose own World Cup campaign has been fuelled by a 6,000-calorie daily intake built around beef heart, liver, and a self-blended 'magic potion' of raw milk, spinach, and kale.
Where Haaland eats like a Viking, Messi eats like a nutritionist's case study.
Both are level on seven tournament goals so far.
The first thing Messi does every morning - before food, before training, before anything - is prepare yerba mate.
It is an Argentine tradition, but for Messi it borders on the sacred.
He drinks it from a gourd through a metal straw called a bombilla, and has done so every single day since he was a child in Rosario.
"Yerba mate is part of my life," he has said.
"It has always been. Since I was a child. I can't imagine a morning without it."
The drink delivers caffeine and theobromine - the same compound found in dark chocolate - providing a smooth, sustained energy release without the crash associated with coffee.
It has travelled with him from Rosario to Barcelona to Paris to Miami, and now across the United States as Argentina chase a second consecutive World Cup title.
Messi does not wake at 4am. He does not post topless gym selfies. He is not Cristiano Ronaldo.
Ronaldo, who at 41 is the oldest outfield player at this World Cup and the first man to score in six separate tournaments, is famous for training six times a week, sleeping in five precisely timed 90-minute cycles, and maintaining a biological age reportedly assessed at 28.9 years old.
His approach is pure optimisation - every hour of every day engineered for performance.
Messi's is the opposite.
He typically rises between 8 and 9am, eats breakfast with his wife Antonela and their three sons - Thiago, Mateo, and Ciro - and arrives at training mid-morning.
His sessions are built around functional movements designed to maintain the speed, agility, and balance that define his game.
His programme includes multi-directional speed drills, linear sprinting work, strength training focused on his core, back, glutes, and lower body, and extensive flexibility and mobility sessions.
He finishes every training day with 10 to 20 minutes of stretching.
The emphasis is on injury prevention rather than muscle building.
At 5ft 7in and around 72kg, Messi's advantage has never been physical power - it is his low center of gravity, his explosive first step, and his ability to change direction at full speed.
His training is designed entirely to protect those attributes.
His former Barcelona physio Juanjo Brau, who worked with him for over a decade, built daily prehab and rehab sessions into his schedule that were as non-negotiable as training itself.
After training, Messi follows a structured recovery protocol that includes contrast water therapy - alternating between hot and cold water immersion - and soft tissue work with his physiotherapy team.
At Inter Miami, his recovery load is managed based on match frequency and training intensity.
His evenings are deliberately low-key.
He eats a light dinner of lean protein and vegetables, spends time with his family, and goes to bed early.
He has described family time not as a luxury but as a genuine recovery tool - a mental reset that has sustained him over a career spanning more than two decades.
Guardiola once explained Messi's most misunderstood habit: walking.
During matches, Messi spends long stretches barely moving, which casual viewers interpret as laziness. Guardiola saw the opposite.
"Don't try to describe him - watch him," Guardiola said.
"He walks and reads, then acts."
Analysts have since confirmed that during those walking phases, Messi performs more visual scans of the pitch than almost any other player, absorbing positional data before exploding into action. It is not rest. It is preparation.
The numbers border on absurd.
Messi scored a hat trick in Argentina's 3-0 opening win over Algeria - his first ever at a World Cup and a performance that earned a perfect 10 rating from WhoScored.
He added two more against Austria to break Miroslav Klose's all-time World Cup goalscoring record, then came off the bench against Jordan to curl in a free kick and seal a perfect group stage campaign.
In the round of 32 against Cape Verde, he scored his seventh of the tournament in the first half and then played all 120 minutes as Argentina were pushed to extra time by the African debutants before eventually winning 3-2.
He scored again from a corner-kick assist situation, taking his tally to eight and his career total to 20 - two clear of Kylian Mbappé in second place.
He has scored in eight consecutive World Cup matches.
Twelve goal contributions in knockout rounds.
He has scored more World Cup goals after turning 35 (nine) than Diego Maradona, Rivaldo, Thierry Henry, and Romário scored in their entire careers.
His manager Lionel Scaloni has run out of ways to describe it.
"What you're seeing, I'm seeing the same thing," Scaloni said after the Jordan game.
"It's a little bit of an uncomfortable situation every single time people ask because I no longer know what to say."
Egypt are up first.
Today. Mohamed Salah against Lionel Messi in Atlanta - two of the greatest forwards of their generation, meeting in the World Cup knockout rounds for the first time.
The Opta supercomputer gives Argentina a 69 per cent chance of winning in normal time.
Beyond that, the bracket opens up in a way that could produce one of the great World Cup storylines.
A quarter-final could pit Messi's Argentina against one of the tournament's surprise packages. A semi-final could mean England or Norway - and Haaland, the only player currently matching Messi's output, after knocking Brazil out with a second-half brace in the round of 16.
A final could mean France and a rematch of 2022 - widely considered the greatest World Cup final ever played.
Messi has not confirmed whether this will be his last World Cup.
He has not needed to. At 39, with 20 goals, eight straight scoring appearances, and a diet that has not included a slice of pizza since 2014, the answer appears to be that he will stop when his body tells him to.
It has not told him yet.
For more sport coverage, including all the latest from the 2026 World Cup, follow VT.
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Published 13:10 20 Jun 2018 GMT
You're probably not that into sport. But once every four years, like most people, you grab a beer and a replica football jersey, and sit down to watch the World Cup. It's one of the most-watched sporting events in the world, with the final in 2014 pulling in over a billion people.
This year, you might have watched what some consider the game of the tournament so far: a 3-3 draw between Spain and Portugal. Amidst the fouls, free kicks and general frenzy that football brings, you might have noticed that all of Portugal's goals were scored by one man, wearing the number seven.
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That man is Cristiano Ronaldo. For fans of football, he needs no introduction. For many ladies, he needs very little introduction; not only does he have the football skills of a Greek god, but he's got the body to match. Either way, if Cristiano Ronaldo invited you to have lunch, you'd probably jump at the opportunity.
However, one of his former teammates says that at all costs, you should politely turn down Ronaldo's offer.
French defender Patrice Evra played with Ronaldo for three years (from 2006-2009) at Manchester United, and speaking on ITV's 2018 World Cup podcast, he recounted a time that the 33-year-old Portuguese invited him to his house for lunch. Turns out, you do not want to go to lunch with Cristiano Ronaldo.
It all started off pretty innocuously. On the whole, despite being an athlete at the top of his game, Cristiano Ronaldo is known for having a pretty liberal diet in comparison to the likes of Tom Brady or LeBron, so when Evra was invited to Ronaldo's house for lunch, he was expecting a pretty big meal. He did not get that.
"[Ronaldo] said: 'Patrice, come over after training.' I went [and] you know I was really tired. At the table there was only salad and plain white chicken so I was like 'okay…,' and water, not any juice. We started eating and I was thinking some big meat would be coming after that but there was nothing."
Okay... that's fair. After all, they'd just finished training, and maybe there was an element of keeping himself in shape ahead of a big match. But then, things really got weird.
"He had just finished and he stood up and he started playing with a ball, doing some skills and he said: 'Let's do some two touch.' I was like 'can I just finish eating?' [Ronaldo replied] 'No, no let's play two-touch.' We start playing two touch. After that he said let's go to the pool to swim, I was like 'okay…' after going in the jacuzzi, the sauna, I'm done."
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Yeah, it turns out that even after Manchester United training had ended, Cristiano Ronaldo carried on right afterward. Some say he never stops training. Football fans will obviously know that Ronaldo was always talented, but Evra's story shows just how far he's willing to push himself to reach the top of the game, and at 33, when most players' bodies begin to break down, Ronaldo seems to be moving from strength to strength.
Having been given the Ballon d'Or Award for the world's best footballer for the last two years, Ronaldo's aiming to win the award for the record-breaking sixth time this year, and one way to help his chances is to win the World Cup with Portugal. They're not one of the favourites, but with Ronaldo in his current form, anything's possible.
Published 12:20 06 Jul 2026 GMT
Erling Haaland eats beef hearts for breakfast, sleeps 10 hours a night with tape over his mouth, meditates before every match, and has scored in every single competitive game for Norway since October 2024.
Now he is coming for England.
The 25-year-old Manchester City striker has been the standout player at the 2026 World Cup, firing Norway into a quarter-final against the Three Lions after a tournament that has seen him rack up seven goals in four games.
Norway, who had not qualified for a World Cup since 1998, are now one win away from the semi-finals - and the man leading the charge runs on a regime that makes most elite athletes' routines look casual.
This is where it gets interesting.
Haaland consumes around 6,000 calories a day - roughly three times the recommended intake for an adult male.
His diet is built around whole, unprocessed foods with an emphasis on organ meats that most people would not touch.
In his 2022 Viaplay documentary Haaland: The Big Decision, he was filmed carrying a bag of beef liver and heart from a local butcher.
"People say meat is bad for you," he said.
"But which meat? The meat you buy at McDonald's? Or the local cow eating grass right over there?
"I eat the heart and the liver."
British tabloids labelled the diet 'cannibalistic'.
Nutritionists, on the other hand, pointed out that liver is arguably the most nutrient-dense single food that exists - packed with vitamin A, every B vitamin, folate, copper, iron, and high-quality protein.
The rest of his daily intake includes fatty steaks (ribeye and tomahawk are his favourites), eggs, fresh fish, sourdough bread, and what he calls his 'magic potion' - a blend of raw milk, spinach, and kale that he carries to training sessions.
He adds maple syrup and raw unpasteurised milk to his morning coffee, which he considers "a superfood if you do it right".
His girlfriend, Norwegian footballer Isabel Haugseng Johansen, summed it up in a YouTube video: "Oh my god, he eats so much. Everything is about, 'When is the next meal? What should we eat? What shall we make?'"
His one ritual that never changes is the lasagne his father Alf-Inge cooks for him before every home match. Pep Guardiola reportedly joked about hiring Alf-Inge as Manchester City's club chef.
His rare cheat meal? A kebab pizza from his hometown of Bryne.
"I never eat it, only on special occasions," he has said.
"Maybe once a year, if I'm lucky."
The physical transformation has been staggering.
A former coach at RB Salzburg described the teenager who arrived at the club as a 'Cyborgoal' - a football cyborg - after he gained 12 kilograms of muscle in just 15 months.
His training regime prioritises speed, power, and endurance over heavy lifting.
Former Salzburg coach Stanislav Macek revealed that Haaland was doing 300 press-ups and 1,000 sit-ups a day during his time at the club.
He runs hill sprints repeatedly, favours HIIT sessions over traditional gym work, and finishes every session with 10 to 20 minutes of stretching and mobility work.
At 6ft 4in and 94kg, he is built more like a sprinter than a traditional striker. He told AS that the weight gain was "gross muscle mass" rather than bulk, and that his diet was the driving force behind it.
"The better food you put in your body, the better you're going to get things out of it," he said on the Man City podcast. "And performance as well."
This is where it tips from disciplined into obsessive.
Haaland's daily recovery routine includes cryotherapy, red light therapy, hot stone baths, saunas, and personalised physiotherapy sessions.
He wears blue-light-blocking glasses before bed.
He tapes his mouth shut at night to encourage nasal breathing during sleep.
He drinks only filtered water. He makes a point of getting morning sunlight and fresh air, and has said that one of his favourite summer habits is eating breakfast outdoors to regulate his circadian rhythm.
He sleeps around 10 hours a night and has described sleep as the single most important factor in his performance.
"Sleep is the most important thing," he told The Mirror.
"I am obsessed with sleep. If I sleep well, I play well. It is the clearest connection in my life."
He also meditates daily - the habit behind his famous cross-legged goal celebration. He has said it helps him "find an inner peace" that translates directly to how he plays.
Haaland was born in Leeds in 2000 while his father Alf-Inge was playing in the Premier League for Leeds United.
Alf-Inge also played for Nottingham Forest and Manchester City, creating a family legacy his son would later continue at the Etihad.
Despite being born in England, Haaland grew up in Bryne, a small town on Norway's southwestern coast.
He is fiercely proud of his Norwegian identity and has leaned into the Viking imagery more than most.
In March, he spent 1.3 million Norwegian kroner - around $136,000 - to buy a one-of-a-kind 16th-century Viking history book and put it on public display in Bryne.
Before the World Cup, Norway's squad posed as Vikings on the shore in full battle regalia.
The team have since embraced the 'Viking Row' - a fan-created chant in which thousands of supporters sit on the ground in a longboat formation and row to the beat of a Norse horn and drum.
It has become the defining image of the tournament, drawing comparisons with Iceland's 'Thunder Clap' at Euro 2016.
Haaland and captain Martin Ødegaard joined the fans in performing the row after Norway's 3-2 win over Senegal, which confirmed their place in the knockout rounds.
"I saw it online; it's gone completely viral," Haaland told Fox Sports.
"Martin asked me before the game: 'Do you think we should join in?'"
Historically good. Haaland has scored in every competitive game for Norway since October 2024 - a run of 14 matches and 27 goals that has no modern equivalent in international football.
He scored twice in the 4-1 opening win over Iraq and has not stopped since.
"I'm incredibly proud to make my World Cup debut and to win Norway's first World Cup match in 28 years," he said after that first game. "I hope people will party."
England. In the quarter-final. A Manchester City striker coming up against the country of his birth.
It is one of those fixtures that this World Cup seems to have been building towards.
Norway were not supposed to be here, they had not qualified for a major tournament knockout stage in almost three decades.
But Haaland, Ødegaard, and the Viking Row have turned them into one of the stories of the tournament - and England will know exactly what they are walking into.
The 2026 World Cup has had no shortage of talking points, from travel ban controversies to surprise results.
But few stories have captured the imagination quite like Norway's run - and the man at the centre of it who eats cow hearts for fuel and tapes his mouth shut before bed.
England have been warned.
Published 12:28 15 Jun 2021 GMT
Cristiano Ronaldo couldn't help but share his distaste at a Euro 2020 press conference as he removed Coke bottles in front of him before shouting "drink water!"
The legendary footballer, 36, is famed for his peak physical fitness, which could explain why the Coke annoyed him so much, but Coca-Cola is the tour sponsor.
The Portugal captain sat before realizing there were two Coke bottles in front of him, and he held up his water bottle instead shouting "Agua!", which is Portuguese for water.
Watch the moment Ronaldo swaps Coke for water below:Ronaldo's actions at the press conference came after he recently opened up about the strict diet he follows to maintain peak physical fitness.
In an interview with ESPNFC, he said that he has two dinners and two lunches per day on average.
He explained that he has ham and cheese as well as yogurt for his breakfast before a snack of avocado on toast when he gets hungry later in the morning.
The football star has chicken and a salad for his first lunch and fish for his second. He then has either fish or meat for his two dinners.
While he did not specify what he likes to drink, we can only assume that it's strictly water only after what happened at the Euro 2020 press conference.
In fact, the footballer previously implied that his son has less potential because he likes to eat junk food and drink Coca-Cola, per Metro.
At the Global Soccer Awards ceremony, he said: "We'll see if my son will become a great footballer. Sometimes he drinks Coca-cola and eats crisps and it irritates me, he knows that.
"Sometimes I tell my son to take a dip in cold water to recover after a run on the treadmill and he says, 'Dad, it's so cold there'. That's fine, he is only 10 years old."
Portugal is playing their first match of the Euros on Tuesday, June 15, and the team will be reliant on Ronaldo's skills as a talisman to remain victorious.
While he is comparatively old in footballing years, per The Guardian, this has given him invaluable experience.
He said: "The most intelligent thing about a footballer is the ability to adjust. I am more mature now.
"If a player wants to play for many years he needs to know how to adjust and adapt and the numbers speak for themselves. From 18 to 36 I have managed to adjust and adapt.
"I have always been able to win and on a collective level part of a team that has been able to win. I have shown that the key is to adjust all along with my career."
Published 14:31 22 Dec 2022 GMT
Argentina has been celebrating its World Cup win with large-scale parties - but the celebrations took a nasty turn after a fan lost his life and a five-year-old was left in a coma.
Argentina came out on top of a nail-biting encounter with France in the World Cup final on December 18, with Lionel Messi wrapping up his illustrious career with the biggest prize in soccer.
He netted twice during the game, with Kylian Mbappe of France finding a response every time. The game went to penalties and Argentinian goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez proved to be the hero after saving one and seeing another go wide - though his antics after the game had divided opinions.
As per the BBC, an estimated 5 million people took to the streets of Buenos Aires (Argentina's capital city) as the heroic players displayed the newly won trophy on an open-top bus.
Revelers flocked to the streets wearing Argentina's famous blue and white soccer jersey - and the day was even declared a public holiday.
The celebrations soon descended into chaos as things got out of hand. Police were attacked with missiles, a fan lost his life and a five-year-old boy has been left in a coma.
The players and team staff on the bus had to abandon the vehicle as it became clear that it was impossible to drive through the thick crowds. A helicopter picked them up and they waved from afar.
As reported by the Mirror, the man who unfortunately died during the celebrations was standing on a rooftop when one of the plates broke - causing him to fall from a great height.
The outlet also states that a five-year-old boy was hit by a piece of a monument that fell in the Plaza San Martin, leaving him in a coma and needing intensive care.
Young men were also reported to have been seen pelting police with bottles and stones, as law enforcement was forced to hide behind riot shields.
Eight officers were left injured with 13 people arrested for their actions - though this number is expected to rise in the coming days when events of the day become clearer.
Published 10:16 17 Jun 2021 GMT
A third soccer player has removed bottles of Coca-Cola from a Euro 2020 press conference after Cristiano Ronaldo seemingly started a movement.
Per Metro, on Wednesday, June 16, 23-year-old Italian player Manuel Locatelli took two bottles of Coca-Cola off his table and put his own bottle of water in their place.
A video shows that the Sassuolo midfielder, who was awarded UEFA's Star of the Match after Italy's win against Switzerland, even mimicked Ronaldo by remarking: "Agua!" - Portuguese for water - to a press officer.
Health-conscious Portuguese captain Ronaldo defied the tournament sponsor earlier this week, after removing two bottles of the soda from his table while speaking at a post-match conference.
As a result of his stunt, The Guardian reports that the share price of Coca-Cola dropped by 1.6%, from $56.10 each to $55.22, with the market value falling from $242 billion to $238 billion.
Per Metro, Ronaldo previously articulated his distaste for the beverage in a statement made at the Global Soccer Awards ceremony.
Ronaldo stated: "We'll see if my son will become a great footballer. Sometimes he drinks Coca-cola and eats crisps and it irritates me. He knows that.
"Sometimes I tell my son to take a dip in cold water to recover after a run on the treadmill and he says: 'Dad, it’s so cold there.' That’s fine. He is only 10 years old."
But the legendary forward's antagonism towards product placement in sports appears to have provoked a knock-on effect and encouraged other players to act likewise.
For instance, French player Paul Pogba appeared to take a stand against another one of the tour's sponsors.
At a press conference following his team's victory over Germany on June 15, the midfielder removed two bottles of Heineken beer from the table in front of the cameras.
Pogba is a devout Muslim and therefore is not permitted to consume alcohol due to the teachings of the Qu'ran.
A spokesperson for the Euro 2020 competition has since responded to Ronaldo's act of defiance, stating: "Players are offered water, alongside Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, on arrival at our press conferences."
Meanwhile, another spokesperson for the soda giant appeared to downplay the issue, stating that: "Everyone is entitled to their drink preferences", with different "tastes and needs."
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