Leo Messi has done it again: he is now the sole top goalscorer in World Cup history, after scoring both goals in a 2-0 victory over Austria. The second goal was his 18th goal in his six World Cup appearances, surpassing Germany's Miroslav Klose, who scored 16 goals. With his hat-trick last week, he surpassed Gerd Muller for West Germany, Kylian Mbappé for France, both 14 goals, and Ronaldo Nazario for Brazil, 15 goals.
Messi has already scored more goals in two games than most players score in the entire tournament. He scored one goal in World Cup 2006, four in World Cup 2014, one in World Cup 2018, seven in World Cup 2022, and now five, and counting, in World Cup 2026.
Messi also became the third player in history to score in six consecutive World Cup matches, after Just Fontaine in 1958 and Jairzinho in 1970, according to Opta (counting the last four matches in World Cup 2022). And he nearly scored a hat-trick today, had he not missed a penalty...
The result leaves Argentina qualified in Group J, almost surely as group leaders (Jordan would need to win today and then score over 6 goals against Argentina on Sunday, which doesn't seem feasible). A historic Argentina-Cape Verde in round of 32 sounds like a real possibility...
