Lionel Messi is now the most prolific goalscorer in World Cup history. His second strike against Austria on Monday was his 18th in the competition, taking him past Miroslav Klose's old mark of 16 goals. And the record is not finished growing because Argentina are still going.
Messi started his last World Cup with a bang! Three goals against Algeria in the opener, enough to match Miroslav Klose record of 16 goals at a final tournament. A record that has stood since 2014.
Then, in Dallas, he went past him. At first, Messi stumbled against Austria. Argentina's captain missed a penalty. But less than half an hour later, he broke Klose's record. A 39th-minute finish made it 17 and broke the tie; a late second made it 18 and pushed the bar somewhere no man has reached.
He cleared more than Klose along the way. With 18, Messi moved ahead of Brazil's Marta, who scored 17 across her Women's World Cup career, to become the leading scorer in either competition — a line in the record books that did not exist in this shape until Monday night.
Messi scored his first World Cup goal on June 16, 2006, as an 18-year-old coming off the bench against Serbia and Montenegro. Twenty years on, to the week, he is still scoring them — and he has now played in six different editions of the tournament, the first man ever to do so. He has found the net in six straight World Cup matches going back to 2022.
What makes the record live rather than settled is the calendar. Argentina have qualified for the knockout rounds and have a group game still to play. Should they go deep, and the holders usually fancy themselves to, Messi could have four or five more matches in front of him. Every match is a chance to push higher. Klose set his mark over four tournaments and it stood for more than a decade. Messi may spend the next fortnight stretching his own out of reach.
He has, as ever, refused to make a fuss of it. "It's an honor being up there for what it means," he said when he first equalled Klose, before adding that the figures were "stats and nothing more." His teammates feel differently. To play alongside the man rewriting the sport's oldest individual record, in what is almost certainly his last World Cup, is the sort of thing they will tell grandchildren about.
The wider numbers keep climbing too. The Austria goals took Messi to 120 international goals for Argentina, second only to Cristiano Ronaldo's 143 on the men's all-time list. Different record, same theme: a player in his late thirties still adding to totals that were supposed to be closing.
For now, the headline is simple. The most goals anyone has scored at a World Cup belongs to Lionel Messi — and the tournament is not yet half over.
