Julián Quiñones, the naturalized Mexican who scored the first goal of the 2026 World Cup and helped Mexico win its first four matches to reach the round of 16, has been ranked as the eighth-best player of the global tournament.
Quiñones started all five games for El Tri as a winger and found the net four times, tying a national team record for goals scored in a single World Cup tournament.
The honor he received came to light Monday when FIFA released its final Power Rankings of outfield players (non-goalies), with Golden Boot winner Kylian Mbappe of France finishing at No. 1, followed by England’s Jude Bellingham and Argentina’s Lionel Messi.
FIFA’s evaluation system rates each player with a score from 0 to 10 in three areas: attack, creativity and defense.
The other players in the Top 10 were:
4. Erling Haaland (Norway)
5. Ousmane Dembele (France)
6. Charles DeKetelaere (Belgium)
7. Vinicius Junior (Brazil)
9. Johan Manzambi (Switzerland)
10. Harry Kane (England)
The 29-year-old Quiñones was graded with 6.86 points in attack (8th overall), 6.66 in creativity and 5.22 in defense, figures that allowed him to finish above global stars such as Kane, Lamine Yamal of Spain and Michael Olise of France.
His defensive rating (Quiñones constantly tracked back to help El Tri recover possession) was key to his Top 10 place in the Power Rankings as it surpassed that of other star forwards including Mbappe (4.02), Messi (4.55), Dembele (4.68) and Vinicius Junior (4.66).
Quiñones was also ranked 29th in Fox Sports’ Top 50 Players from the 2026 World Cup, in which his performance was described as “one of the finest individual campaigns by a Mexican player on the sport’s biggest stage.”
Also joining Quiñones on the Fox Sports list were: 17-year-old midfielder Gilberto Mora, the youngest Mexican to play at a World Cup and the second-youngest player ever to start a World Cup knockout match; and winger Roberto Alvarado who led El Tri with three assists and ranked 10th overall in the creativity category of FIFA’s Power Ranking.
The four goals Quiñones scored place him in a tie atop Mexico’s all-time World Cup scoring list, even with Luis “El Matador” Hernández and Javier “Chicharito” Hernández.
With reports from FIFA, Nación 321 and Record
