Mac Allister hails Messi after historic hat-trick in Argentina opener
Messi’s hat-trick in Kansas City gave Argentina’s title defense an immediate focal point, and Mac Allister cast the captain as the team’s indispensable center.
Alexis Mac Allister left no doubt about where Argentina’s World Cup defense begins: with Lionel Messi. After Messi’s hat-trick in a 3-0 win over Algeria, the Liverpool midfielder hailed the captain as the most important player in the group and said there are no words left to properly describe him.
The larger question for Argentina is not whether Messi can still decide matches, but how much of the team should be built to keep him deciding them. Against Algeria, Messi answered that question with authority in Kansas City, scoring three times in Argentina’s opener and matching Miroslav Klose as the top scorer in World Cup history. At 2026, Messi is playing his sixth World Cup, another marker of longevity that only sharpens the debate over how Argentina manage the rest of the team around him.
For Lionel Scaloni, that means protecting the spine that carried Argentina into the tournament. Emiliano Martínez, Cristian Romero, Alexis Mac Allister, Messi and Julián Álvarez remain the core of the side Scaloni used to win in Qatar 2022, and the coach confirmed his final 26-man squad on May 28. In practical terms, making Messi comfortable is not an abstract compliment. It means preserving midfield balance, giving him cleaner passing lanes, and accepting that Argentina may need to sacrifice some pressing intensity so the captain can save energy for the moments that matter most.
That trade-off was already baked into the buildup to the opener. Argentina faced Algeria on Tuesday, June 16, at 22.00 in Kansas City, a match framed as a key first step in the title defense and as a particularly unusual matchup because the two sides had only one previous meeting. Scaloni had already said Messi was in good physical shape and that the debut would help fine-tune the team, a reminder that this tournament is as much about structure as star power.
Mac Allister’s praise fits that reality. He has long described Messi as the best in history, and Argentina’s first game in the United States showed why that view still shapes the way the champions play. If Argentina are to retain the World Cup, the tactical answer may be uncomfortable for opponents and obvious to his teammates: Messi remains the axis, and everyone else has to organize around him.
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