Lionel Messi scored Argentina’s first goal in their round of 16 match up against Australia.
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In his landmark 1000th career match, Messi’s goal notched up another milestone as the Paris Saint Germain striker scored his ninth World Cup goal that eclipsed the late Diego Maradona and Cristiano Ronaldo‘s tally of 8 World Cup goals.
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Riding high on Messi’s strike and Julian Alvarez’s goal in the second half, Argentina made its way to the quarter-final of the World Cup but not before an own goal by Enzo Fernandez.
Messi’s goal took him past Diego Maradona and Guillermo Stabille (both on eight goals) to second place in the list of the highest goalscorers for Argentina in World Cups, behind Gabriel Batistuta, who stands on top of the list with 10 goals.
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In the 2006 World Cup in Germany, At the age of 18 years and 357 days, Messi scored a goal against Serbia and Montenegro and became the youngest goal-scorer in Argentina’s World Cup history. However, while Messi soon developed into one of the very best in the World, his World Cup account took another 8 years to be opened, with the then-Barcelona star going goalless in the 2010 South Africa World Cup.
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Unlike Cristiano Ronaldo who became the first male player to score goals in five World Cups, Messi’s World Cup scoring has had two different patches. Either the goals have been very few in some cups or have come in bulk, such as during the 2014 Brazil World Cup where Messi bagged the Golden ball (best player of the tournament) after scoring four goals, or the current cup where he already has three goals in four matches.
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Messi’s goal is also the first of his 9 that were scored in the knockout stages of the World Cup. The rest of the eight goals scored in four World Cups (2006, 2014, 2018 and 2022) were all in the group stages.
