Messi ties World Cup goals record, adds another milestone at 39
Lionel Messi tied Miroslav Klose with 16 World Cup goals and stretched his record to 26 appearances, adding another marker to a six-tournament run at 39.
Lionel Messi has tied the World Cup scoring record at 16 goals, a milestone that lands with extra force as he approaches his 39th birthday. The Argentina captain also owns the tournament appearances mark with 26 matches, turning his World Cup career into a long-running rewrite of the record book.
The numbers matter because of how Messi reached them. He made his World Cup debut as a teenager in 2006 and has now played in six tournaments, a span matched only by Cristiano Ronaldo and Guillermo Ochoa. In the process, he pulled the appearances record away from Lothar Matthäus at Qatar 2022 and set a standard for longevity that no previous scorer has approached in the same way.
His 16th World Cup goal leaves him level with Miroslav Klose, whose name long defined the scoring benchmark at the tournament. What makes Messi’s case unusual is not just the total, but the spread across the years: FIFA says he is the only player to score in every stage of a World Cup, a sign that his production has held up from the early rounds through the biggest knockout matches.
That was on display in the 2022 final in Lusail Stadium, where Argentina beat France 3-3, 4-2 on penalties to win its third World Cup title. Messi scored twice in that final and collected the adidas Golden Ball, becoming the first man to win the award twice at a FIFA World Cup.
For Argentina, the haul confirmed Messi as the country’s record World Cup scorer and the central figure in its modern tournament history. For the wider sport, it underscored how rare it is for a player to remain decisive across six World Cups, especially in an era of tighter margins, heavier schedules and more physically demanding defensive systems.
Klose’s record was built on elite finishing across several campaigns. Messi has matched it while also setting the appearance standard, scoring in every phase of a tournament and delivering on the biggest stage at 35 in Qatar. At 39, he is still adding to a résumé that has already moved past the usual limits of World Cup stardom.
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