The extraordinary numbers behind Lionel Messi – and the all-time World Cup record now in his grasp | OneFootball

The journey took him from Gelsenkirchen to Kansas City. It began as an 18-year-old and reached a new level as a 38-year-old. Argentina’s youngest World Cup scorer is also their oldest. He is also, inimitably, Lionel Messi.

Messi’s first World Cup ended in a game in which Miroslav Klose scored one of his 16 World Cup goals; Messi was an unused substitute when Germany knocked out Argentina in 2006. Perhaps revenge came two decades on. Messi drew level with Klose at the top of the all-time standings with his treble against Algeria.

Klose had resigned himself to his fate, anyway. Messi will go past him, Kylian Mbappe surely, too. “The record will be broken eventually,” the German said last week. “Messi is welcome to do it. I'm a huge Messi fan, always have been.”

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Lionel Messi stole the show on Tuesday night by scoring a hat-trick against Algeria (AP)

Klose is a huge overachiever, a footballer who did not find the net in the Bundesliga until he was 22 and yet who overhauled the Brazilian Ronaldo to become the most prolific World Cup goalscorer of all. He was not touted for greatness at an early age. Messi was, but if that greatness manifested itself largely in the colours of Barcelona, it may have come later in life in the albiceleste of Argentina.

Go through his record-equalling haul in World Cups and 10 have come as a footballing pensioner. That can be explained in part by the reality that the 2022 tournament was a winter World Cup. Messi opened his World Cup account against Serbia and Montenegro at Schalke’s ground. Yet, when he turned 35, he was level on World Cup goals with, among others, Asamoah Gyan, Helmut Haller, Erich Probst, Oleg Salenko and Josef Hugi.

An argument about the greatest players ever was already raging, but Diego Maradona’s status as Argentina’s finest was unchallenged. Maradona remains his country’s finest in World Cups, if only because no one in the modern era has come closer to winning the competition almost single-handedly, but Messi has emulated him in one respect – as a captain who lifted the trophy – and surpassed him with his statistical feats.

There is a sense in which Messi has addressed some of the criticisms directed at him; a way, too, in which the dynamic in his career has been flipped. Messi may have been a Barcelona footballer who played for Argentina. Now he is an Argentina footballer who also plays for Inter Miami.

His sinecure in Major League Soccer may have meant that many of those who used to tune in to watch him on a regular basis now rarely see him in action between World Cups. Yet there was a seamless continuity, as though the last three and a half years had not happened.

Argentina, with the same manager, a core of the same players and much of the same gameplan, looked to find Messi at every opportunity; a footballer who moves less than nearly all others showed he can still find space. Messi had the anticipation as well as the execution.

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Messi is now level at the top of the all-time World Cup goals chart (AP)

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Messi scored his first World Cup goal in 2006 at the age of 18 (Getty)

There was an odd historical quirk in that, in a way, two of his hat-tricks were assisted by Zidane: Luca Zidane, son of the French great and the goalkeeper who ought to have done better for the first two goals. But it was significant, too, that Messi had six shots. He finished with the most in Qatar in 2022 – 32, one more than Mbappe – and if Argentina have a lengthy run in the United States, that feat could be repeated.

WORLD CUP ALL-TIME LEADING GOALSCORERS

1) Miroslav Klose - 16

1) Lionel Messi - 16

3) Ronaldo - 15

4) Gerd Muller - 14

4) Kylian Mbappe - 14

6) Just Fontaine - 13

7) Pele - 12

There is another historical callback: Lionel Scaloni was alongside Messi on Argentina's bench when Klose scored against them in Berlin 20 years ago. Now the manager, the former right-back, has built a gameplan around servicing a great.

“At a loss for words about Leo. What can I say? He’s incredible,” Scaloni said. “It's quite hard to explain. We are amazed with him still, although we get to see him on a daily basis. He has been the best for 20 years but he still pulls it off every single match. You don't need to be an Argentinian fan to admire what he has done at the age of 38.”

Messi has long been called incomparable. Scaloni added another element: the inexplicable. In the broader scheme of things, he has not got better with age: the Messi of 35 or 38 is not the player who scored 73 goals in a season for Barcelona at 24. But as an international footballer, he has got better.

He has won the Copa America twice, in 2021 and 2024. He brought up a double century of international caps in Kansas City. He has scored 120 goals in those 200 games. Since the start of 2022, he has scored 40 times in just 43 caps.

And with 16 in World Cups, he sits alongside Klose. Though perhaps only for a few days.