Lionel Messi to star? Cristiano Ronaldo to bomb? World Cup can still make a mockery of predictions with so long to go

Convinced football is coming home? Lumping on Germany after scoring seven? Tipping Lionel Messi to retain it? Telling yourself that Sweden are dark horses? Writing off Spain, Brazil and Cristiano Ronaldo? Hold fire. Because the World Cup is an epic.

Never more so than this time around in which the group stage will reduce the number of participants down to the 32 that were involved previously. It is what happens in the eighth game not the first that will dictate which team will lift the famous trophy.

The lessons from history are there. Most famously, of course, the reigning champions Argentina were beaten by Saudi Arabia in their opening game in Qatar in 2022. Spain also lost to Switzerland in 2010. That is two of the last four World Cup winners losing their first match.

This detail should be seen as more than a mere quirk. It is an indication that even over the course of a hectic summer, teams can evolve and emerge. Coaches find solutions. Sometimes the answers just present themselves. Player seize their opportunities.

Alexis Mac Allister did not start Argentina's first game in 2022 but was man of the match by the third - the same game in which Enzo Fernandez and Julian Alvarez made the starting line-up for the first time. All three were pivotal in the team's eventual triumph.

That Spain team in 2010 came to realise that they needed Pedro's runs in behind to stretch the opposition, dropping David Silva to accommodate him. Go through World Cup history and there are so many examples of winners looking very different by the end.

Sir Geoff Hurst must be the most famous example, not making his bow until the quarter-final stage when he came in for the injured Jimmy Greaves. But not since Brazil's masterclass in 1970 has the winners' line-up been the same for the first game as the last.

For West Germany in 1974, Rainer Bonhof came in and was instrumental in setting up the winning goal in the final. Four years on, Argentina changed both of their wingers with one of them, Daniel Bertoni, scoring the goal that sealed their 3-1 victory in the final.

Italy changed personnel and formation in 1982, having not won any of their games in the first group stage. Famously, Paolo Rossi would go on to win the Golden Boot and the Golden Ball that summer in Spain despite not scoring in any of Italy's first four matches.

Argentina's legendary 1986 triumph was all about Diego Maradona and the way that Carlos Bilardo built the team around him but even that was a system that developed out in Mexico rather than before. Going into the tournament, they were not fancied at all.

Speaking to Pedro Pasculli, a striker in that squad, he made that clear. "The media in Argentina did not just underestimate us. Above all, they denigrated us saying that the team was too weak and did not have a chance of even getting out of the group."

Pasculli started the opening game with Argentina deploying him and Jorge Valdano ahead of Maradona. He was still playing - and scoring the winner - in the round of 16 against Uruguay. But Bilardo opted to bolster the midfield for the game against England.