Comparing Lionel Messi’s 2026 World Cup stats with Diego Maradona’s legendary 1986 campaign | OneFootball

For a certain generation, Diego Maradona represents the highest apex a footballer has ever reached at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.

But, remarkably, Lionel Messi might just be producing something similar at the 2026 World Cup – a quite frankly bonkers achievement at the age of 39.

Messi has now played as many games as Maradona did at Mexico 86, giving us a good opportunity to go back and compare their output.

The Argentina captain, of course, still has the final to come against Spain. If he can do something similar, once again, to retain the World Cup, then his legacy will truly be beyond compare.

For many, Messi matched Maradona with some unforgettable performances as he helped lead Argentina to their third World Cup in Qatar. But, amazingly enough, his output is actually more even better this time around.

You watch Messi move and he’s clearly on the physical downslope. He doesn’t have anything like the pace and dynamism that he once did. And yet even with his limitations, playing long after most players have retired, he’s still deciding games and making a massive impact.

Still, we can’t see this version of Messi scoring iconic solo goals like Maradona’s ‘Goal of the Century’ solo run in 1986, although he was certainly capable of that in his youth.

Like Maradona in ’86, he’s scored or assisted big goals in every game of the tournament. They’ve both been involved in the vast majority of Argentina’s goals, though Maradona that bit more.

While Maradona scored two of the most famous goals in football history as Argentina beat England 2-1 in the knockout stages, Messi was the provider in this generation’s 2-1 victory over the Three Lions, assisting Enzo Fernandez and Lautaro Martinez, with his cross for the latter in particular an absolute peach.

Maradona notched more assists in 1986, while Messi has scored more goals.

Crucially, of course, Maradona also got his hands on the trophy that year, having set up Jorge Burruchaga’s famous, late match-winner in the final against West Germany. We await to see if Messi has some more magic moments in him for the biggest stage of all.

It’s also worth remembering the context of how much the game has developed in the past 40 years, and still today some of Maradona’s stats are out of this world through any lens.

Maradona drew 53 fouls at the 86 World Cup – over three times as many as Messi in this tournament – and that was when the game was infamously more robust, tougher, and with more lenient refereeing.

The legendary forward also completed over twice as many dribbles as Messi has in this tournament. That’s particularly mindblowing when you consider that Messi leads the dribble charts for every player at the 2026 World Cup.

It’s also fun to consider that football data site SofaScore have gone back and marked players at older World Cups via their statistical algorithm. In an article published before the 2026 tournament, they judged Maradona to be the World Cup GOAT with an average rating of 9.00.

Messi currently has an average of 9.01 so far. Infinitesimally better than Maradona’s ’86 going into the final against Spain.

Here’s how Messi’s stats at the 2026 World Cup compare with Diego Maradona’s in 1986.