Lionel Messi matched the World Cup scoring record on 16 June 2026, scoring a hat-trick against Argelia to reach 16 goals in the tournament. At 38 years and 357 days, he also became the oldest player to score three times in a World Cup match.
The three goals mattered immediately because they pulled Messi level with Miroslav Klose, whose 16 World Cup goals had stood alone at the top since Brasil 2014. Messi also became the oldest Argentine player to score in a World Cup, a mark that came in the same match that extended his tournament total to 24 direct goal participations.
Messi’s numbers show why this keeps landing as a live search topic. He now has 16 goals and 8 assists in 27 World Cup matches, and those two totals together explain the 24 direct goal participations. By that measure, he has moved beyond Pelé’s World Cup total of 21, adding another layer to a tournament record book he has been rewriting for years.
The timing makes the achievement sharper. Messi’s first World Cup goal came on 16 June 2006 against Serbia y Montenegro, and his latest arrived exactly 20 years later against Argelia. That span covers six World Cup participations, from Alemania 2006 to Estados Unidos, México y Canadá 2026, and it turns a single match into a long arc of durability as much as scoring.
There is still one detail left unresolved inside the record chase. Messi has matched Klose, but he has not moved past him yet, even though several matches remain for Argentina. Ronaldo Nazário sits on 15 World Cup goals, Kylian Mbappé and Gerd Müller on 14 apiece, so the next goal would not just break a tie; it would set Messi alone at the top of the World Cup scoring list.
For now, the headline is simple. Messi has reached the summit alongside Klose, and he did it with a hat-trick that added age records, a longevity mark, and another assist to a World Cup career that is still collecting milestones in real time.
