{"id":6827,"date":"2026-07-17T20:48:02","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T20:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=6827"},"modified":"2026-07-17T20:48:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T20:48:02","slug":"beyond-messis-goals-and-assists-the-numbers-behind-his-2026-world-cup-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=6827","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Messi&#039;s Goals And Assists: The Numbers Behind His 2026 World Cup Run"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            POPULAR SEARCHES\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            BROWSE BY\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Lionel Messi&#8217;s 2026 World Cup has been historic, and his eight goals and four assists only scratch the surface.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Aside from the goal contributions, Messi has been dominant in several ways\u2014 through balls, take-ons, possessions won, and several other advanced metrics. It&#8217;s absolutely incredible just how versatile the 39-year-old has been through seven games of the tournament. He&#8217;s currently -800 to win his third Golden Ball award, and +100 to win the Golden Boot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Here&#8217;s a deeper dive into the numbers behind Messi&#8217;s brilliance this tournament, ahead of the World Cup final between Argentina and Spain on July 19.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14><i>This page may contain affiliate links to legal sports betting partners. If you sign up or place a wager, FOX Sports may be compensated. Read more about <\/i><i><u>Sports Betting on FOX Sports<\/u><\/i><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><span>Lionel Messi in FIFA World Cup semifinal vs. England (Photo by Liu Lu\/VCG via Getty Images).<\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Lionel Messi&#8217;s 2026 World Cup has been historic, and his eight goals and four assists only scratch the surface. Aside from the goal contributions, Messi has been dominant in several ways\u2014 through balls, take-ons, possessions won, and several other advanced metrics. It&#8217;s absolutely incredible just how versatile the 39-year-old has been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6827","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\/6827","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=6827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}