Lionel Messi turned 39 on Wednesday, and the birthday only underlined how far his World Cup record book has been stretched. He scored twice in Argentina's 2-0 win over Austria on Monday, lifting his career total to 18 World Cup goals and adding to a list of milestones that already looked out of reach.
That latest brace pushed him past Miroslav Klose for the most goals ever by a men's player at the World Cup, and past Marta for the most by any player. It also gave him a 18th World Cup win, a 28th appearance and his 13th Man of the Match award at the FIFA World Cup, all of them records that now belong to him alone.
The timing is what makes the numbers feel even stranger. Messi is not piling up these marks in the early part of a career; he is doing it at 39, after Monday's match became the 21st time he has captained Argentina in a World Cup game. He also tied the men's record for scoring in six straight World Cup matches and joined Jairzinho and Just Fontaine in that run, while becoming the third man to score a brace after missing a penalty in the same match.
The larger picture is even harder to dismiss. Messi has now scored four or more goals in three different men's World Cups, a feat matched only by Miroslav Klose, and his five multi-goal World Cup games now include four braces and one hat trick. His 2.5 goals per match in the tournament would be the best scoring rate ever at a World Cup among players with at least five goals, and if Argentina reaches the final and he plays in all eight matches, he would be on pace for 20 goals, seven more than the tournament record set by Just Fontaine in 1958.
That is the catch in all of this. The birthday headline is easy; the harder fact is that Messi's age is now almost beside the point. His 2,489 World Cup minutes are already the most by any player, his eight Ballons d'Or remain unmatched, and the only thing still missing from the ledger is the next match that could add yet another line to it.
