Lionel Messi scored his first goal in his peak career on May 1. 2005. That year El Pulga was 17 years old, scoring in Barcelona's victory over Albacete. That lob shot helped the Argentine striker become the youngest player to score in Blaugrana history.
21 years later, exactly 7,717 days later, Messi became the oldest player to score a hat-trick in World Cup history. That was the jubilant opening match of defending champion Argentina against Algeria. The 39-year-old superstar scored all 3 goals on Albiceleste's opening day.
Before entering the final match of the 2026 World Cup group stage, Messi had 5 goals in this campaign. After the match with Jordan closed, once again the whole football world had to mention the name of the captain of Argentina. His not-too-difficult free kick deceived the opponent's goalkeeper and helped M10 score his 19th goal in his World Cup appearances.
With Argentina's upcoming journey not too difficult, at least in the round of 32 (against Cape Verde) and round of 16 (against Australia/Egypt), the possibility of Messi continuing to break further the record he created himself is real.
In his career, Messi has scored in every major tournament he participated in, only the 2010 World Cup was when El Pulga was silent. Ronaldo is different, he scored in South Africa 16 years ago, so in the match against Uzbekistan recently, a double helped CR7 become the first player in history to score in 6 different World Cup finals (continuously).
2012 is definitely the most memorable milestone in Messi's career. Besides the 4th (consistent) Ballon d'Or in his career, M10 also scored 91 goals that year at all levels. To this day, that is still a number that no striker has approached, let alone broken this milestone.
The hat-trick against Algeria on the opening day of the 2026 World Cup helped Messi have another year to score a hat-trick. The last year in his career M10 did not score 3 goals in 1 match was 2008. To see how long that milestone took, 2008 is also the year of birth of a Mexican international who played in the victory over the Czech Republic - Gilberto Mora.
According to statistics, although Messi has a great achievement that few people can match, in the 917 goals he has scored, there are also some milestones that M10 has not been able to conquer. The 39-year-old striker has scored in every minute of the match but only in the first minute. Now at nearly 40 years old, M10 rushing up after the opening whistle to score a goal in the 1st minute is considered impossible.
After the 2026 World Cup group stage, if Ronaldo has 975 goals, Messi has reached 917. M10 is 2 years younger than CR7 and the 1,000-goal race, which seems impossible for most professional players, is still being continued by these two great legends.
