Socceroos, Salah, Pharaohs, oh my! The stars of the 2026 World Cup keep showing up

Throughout the 2026 World Cup, the biggest international soccer stars have continued to put their respective stamps onto the tournament like rarely ever before. A quick look at the Golden Boot leaderboard features instantly recognizable, highly marketable marquee names including France’s Kylian Mbappe, Norway’s Erling Haaland and of course, Argentina’s Lionel Messi. 

With an impressive slate of group stage matches, AT&T Stadium has hosted a number of those luminaries, with England’s Harry Kane, Virgil van Dijk of the Netherlands, Croatia’s Luka Modric, and Messi, already seeing action on the Arlington pitch. Friday’s round of 32 knockout match, attended by a reported 70,322, between Australia’s Socceroos and Egypt’s Pharaohs was no different.  

Mohamed Salah is Egypt’s all-time greatest soccer player and one of the biggest stars of the English Premier League where he has led Liverpool FC for nearly a decade. While the 34-year-old right winger’s future with Liverpool is in question right now, his status as one of world soccer’s brightest stars is certain. As his team has netted one win and two draws so far, Salah has been among the tournament leaders in scoring chances created as one of the Cup’s most active playmakers. It didn’t seem as though his team had been thrown off by Thursday’s viral altercation with a Dallas police officer.

It may be hard to fathom, but the World Cup is now more than three weeks old. For many, and for good reason, the early stars of this year’s World Cup were the excitable visitors from Japan, Germany, Scotland, England, Norway and the Netherlands. Their infectious joy for American food and culture, shared across social media and local news broadcasts, threatened to steal the show from even the most famous names suiting up to play. 

But as the novelty of massive beef ribs, Buc-ee’s and Ella Langley has calmed, the excitement and frenzy on the field has gone in the opposite direction. Unlike several matches over the past couple of days where pre-hydration break scoring has been in short supply, the action got off to an early start on Friday when Egypt’s Emam Ashour headed in a goal in the 13th minute, just after Salah played as a decoy on a free kick. After primarily playing on their own end early in the match, Egypt kept applying pressure on the other end after their score. 

To be fair, however, a shot of “Frisco King” star Samuel L. Jackson on the massive screen above the pitch elicited nearly as loud of cheer as Egypt’s goal did. 

After the match was tied 1-1 early in the second half, thanks to an own goal scored by Egypt, both teams had their far share of chances to break the tie, but in this World Cup, draws and eventual knockout round penalty shootouts have been en vogue. With a couple of decent looks in the final five minutes, Salah wasn’t able to conjure any magic in regular time.

The match ended with a penalty kick shootout, where Salah nailed an elegantly tricky “panenka,” that lofted just out of the goaltender’s reach. Australia missed a couple of their shots, helping Egypt secure its first-ever victory in a World Cup knockout round match. Of course, our Mike Brooks was on the field, aiming his lens in all the right areas. Check out some of his wonderful shots below.