Women Behind Great Footballers Or Great Women Behind Footballers?

How the 2026 World Cup is rewriting the WAG story

The World Cup was always about football. Until it wasn’t.

Victoria Beckham didn’t just coin the term WAG. She made it legend. When “WAG” first blew up during the 2006 World Cup in Germany, it wasn’t a compliment. Let’s be honest; it was a label. Wives and Girlfriends photographed at the beach while their partners played the actual game. The cameras followed them not because of who they were, but because of who they were with.

Anyway that was twenty years ago. A lot has changed since then. And the 2026 World Cup is probably going to be the moment everyone finally notices.

I am telling you. The 2026 Class Is Different

Start with Georgina Rodríguez. 89 million Instagram followers. A Netflix show. She’s been with Ronaldo for years and somewhere along the way, he became the secondary character in her story; not the other way around. I am definetely not a fan, but you don’t have to be a fan to see that what she built is real. She didn’t get handed an audience. She made one.

Bruna Biancardi is a different kind of story. Her relationship with Neymar has been messy and public in ways that would have swallowed most people whole. Betrayal, breakup, back together; the tabloids enjoyed it, every single time. But she never let it become her whole identity. She kept going. Built her platform anyway. That takes something.

Then there’s Ester Expósito. Spanish actress, Elite, 38 million followers and most probably linked to Mbappé. Here’s the thing though: she was already famous before his name ever came up. She didn’t walk into football culture.

Taylor Ward grew up inside football. Her dad is former Premier League player Gary Ward. So she’s not learning the rules from the outside. She already knew them when she married Riyad Mahrez. That shows.

And Antonela Roccuzzo. She is totally different from all this. She and Messi have been together since they were kids. Twenty years, three sons, Barcelona to Paris to Miami. And She’s never been loud about any of it. She didn’t need to be. She was always just… you know there. That’s its own kind of power.

You get my point, right?

In 2006, cameras followed these women wherever they went.

In 2026, they decide what gets seen.

Social media did that. For the first time, they had a direct line to their audience. No editor, no photographer, no magazine framing the story for them. They post what they want. They speak when they want. The middleman is gone.

But here’s what I keep coming back to: Is this actually a shift, or are we just telling ourselves a nicer version of the same story?

Because the attention still starts with football. Georgina’s Netflix deal happened because of Ronaldo. Bruna’s numbers go up during tournaments. Even Ester Expósito is being googled alongside Mbappé right now, not independently of him. (at least this is how i noticed her)

Maybe the label has changed. Maybe the thing underneath it hasn’t.

What do you think about that?