Lionel Messi continues to remind the football world that he’s the greatest player of all time, with one GOAT move after another. Now, he’s the all-time leading FIFA World Cup goalscorer \u2014 and will only extend his mark with every goal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thanks to his hat trick against Algeria, Messi broke multiple records in his first 2026 World Cup match, including equaling Germany’s Miroslav Klose for most men\u2019s World Cup goals in history with 16. He also now holds the record for being the youngest and oldest Argentinian to score in the competition, and after the 3-0 win over Algeria, he became the oldest male player to net a hat trick at the World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And that was only after his first 2026 World Cup match.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In his second game this summer, against Austria in the group-stage match, Messi made history again, breaking the tie with Klose and becoming the all-time top scorer in men’s World Cup history with 17. And then he kept going.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Shortly before the end of the Austria match, he netted his second goal of the game, bringing his World Cup total to 18 goals and breaking the all-time tie he had with Marta (17).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Messi now stands alone in FIFA World Cup history with 18 tournament goals and 122 overall as Argentina’s top scorer.<\/p>\n
He has five goals in his first two matches at this edition of the World Cup, and the fact that he\u2019s turning 39 in a few days is ridiculous.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There is no doubt that the Argentinian captain, who is playing in a record sixth World Cup alongside Cristiano Ronaldo, will continue to terrorize opposing goalkeepers. So the only natural thing to do is to not just count his 2026 World Cup goals, but also rank them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A prototypical Messi instinct is to react before anyone else. And that\u2019s what happened here after Alexis Mac Allister\u2019s effort was pushed away by Zidane, but not far enough. Messi pounced and earned his second goal of the night.<\/p>\n
Messi, as he is turning, receives the ball from his Inter Miami teammate Rodrigo De Paul, and with his quintessential, almost omnipotent left foot, takes an effort just outside the box, smashing a powerful shot past Algeria\u2019s Luka Zidane. Zinedine\u2019s son probably saw it coming, but like many other mortals, it just can\u2019t be stopped. It was the door that opened the floodgates.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Once again, as is always the case, it started and ended with Messi as he provided the ball out to the left to Julian Alvarez. The man from Atl\u00e9tico de Madrid saw his shot saved, Messi claimed it, then shot it. THAT one gets blocked, but because Leo never quits, the Argentinian captain headed toward the center of the box and smashed it in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pure determination.<\/p>\n
There is probably more of a poetic, symbolic meaning to this goal as it officially marked his first ever hat trick at the World Cup. But it was also a delightful finish that sealed the three points and placed Messi in the history books.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Receiving a ball from Nico Gonzalez inside the box, the soon-to-be 39-year-old star made a quick assessment and shot at Zidane with an effort that went bottom-left. Once again, the goal was perfectly placed with tremendous accuracy and the stadium knew the outcome. We all did.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Messi, once again, gave us an evening to never forget.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Of course, this is the goal that’s sealed in time, making him the all-time scorer in men’s World Cup history. After missing a penalty in the 14th minute, Messi made amends by scoring a delicious finish, thanks also to a wonderful dummy by Thiago Almada.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Messi took it the first time, and it was clear he was never going to miss. On the 40th anniversary of Diego Maradona\u2019s “Hand of God” against England in the 1986 World Cup quarterfinal, Messi created another eternal memory for Argentina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Lionel Messi continues to remind the football world that he’s the greatest player of all time, with one GOAT move after another. Now, he’s the all-time leading FIFA World Cup goalscorer \u2014 and will only extend his mark with every goal.\u00a0 Thanks to his hat trick against Algeria, Messi broke multiple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}