Messi breaks World Cup scoring record as Argentina advance to last 32
Messi’s brace pushed him to 18 World Cup goals and sent Argentina into the last 32, deepening his claim to the tournament’s greatest record.
Lionel Messi turned a missed penalty into another place in football history, scoring twice to lift Argentina past Austria and to 18 World Cup goals. The brace moved Messi beyond Miroslav Klose’s men’s record and past Brazil’s Marta as the leading scorer across men’s and women’s World Cups, while defending champions Argentina advanced to the last 32 with a game to spare.
The record had already been building since Argentina’s 3-0 win over Algeria on June 16, when Messi scored a hat trick to tie Klose at 16 and deliver his first World Cup treble. At 38, Messi became the oldest player to score three times in a World Cup match, and the performance came in his 200th appearance for Argentina and in his record sixth World Cup. It also marked his 11th international hat trick overall.
Against Austria on June 22, Messi missed an early penalty before breaking through late in the first half and again in stoppage time to settle the match 2-0. The goals came in Dallas, Texas, at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium, before a crowd reported at 70,649, where fans rose to their feet chanting “Messi, Messi” as Argentina teammates embraced him in disbelief.
The symbolism around the record gave the moment extra weight. Messi’s first World Cup goal came in 2006 against Serbia and Montenegro, making this latest milestone arrive almost exactly 20 years later. It also came exactly 40 years after Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” goal at the 1986 World Cup, a link that ties Messi’s scoring run to two defining eras of Argentine football.
Messi said after tying Klose that it was “an honor” to be alongside Klose and Cristiano Ronaldo, but that the statistics “don’t mean anything” to him. The comments fit the pattern of a player who keeps widening the record book while insisting the team result matters more than the numbers. With Argentina already through and Messi now alone at the top of World Cup scoring, the tournament’s most coveted stage has added another chapter to his longevity.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
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