Messi reaches 18 World Cup goals and stands alone atop the all-time record with two goals against Austria

Lionel Messi is now the all-time top scorer in World Cup history. The Argentine found the net twice in the 2-0 win over Austria in Dallas and reached 18 goals at the tournament – two more than Germany’s Miroslav Klose, who had topped the list until yesterday. At 38, Argentina’s number 10 keeps rewriting his own legend.

A missed penalty and two goals that go down in history

The match started far from the ideal script for Messi. Early on, he missed a penalty – and it looked like the day might not be his. But football has these turnarounds. The world champion found the net once in each half, finished the game with two goals in his pocket and overtook Klose for good.

With the result, Argentina added another three points in Group J and remain favorites for the title. Messi now has five goals in just two games at this World Cup – he had scored a hat-trick against Algeria in the opener. It is a pace the competition has not seen since 1958. And he is only the second player to score his country’s first five goals at a single World Cup on his own, a feat previously achieved only by Russia’s Oleg Salenko in 1994.

If the pace continues, Messi could become the first player to reach double digits in goals at a single World Cup since Germany’s Gerd Müller, of West Germany, in 1970. The only major trophy still missing from his career is precisely the Golden Boot. The path is open.

Mbappé applies pressure, but the lead is solid

Kylian Mbappé is trying to keep pace. The Frenchman scored twice in the 3-0 rout of Iraq – a match whose second half was delayed by more than two hours due to a heavy thunderstorm with lightning in Philadelphia. With that performance, the Paris Saint-Germain forward remains Messi’s main rival in the race for the tournament’s top scorer.

In other games on the day, Erling Haaland was decisive in Norway’s narrow 3-2 win over Senegal: two of his own goals, one from Marcus Pedersen, and a tense finish after Ismaila Sarr scored Senegal’s second deep into stoppage time. Algeria, meanwhile, came from behind to beat Jordan 2-1 in Santa Clara in the second game of Group J.

But the night, inevitably, belonged to Messi. It always does.