Messi Claims World Cup All-Time Scoring Record vs
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- Lionel Messi became the World Cup's all-time top scorer with the opening goal in Argentina's 2-0 win over Austria, after missing an earlier penalty kick in the match.
- The record-breaking goal was a three-pass team move: Messi found Thiago Almada, who passed to Facundo Medina, whose low cross was deliberately left by Almada for an arriving Messi to sweep past the keeper.
- Messi's milestone brings his World Cup tally to 13 goals, with 12 of them scored after his 35th birthday — an unusual late-career scoring rate.
- Coach Lionel Scaloni initially tried a rapid-transition style modeled on France and Kylian Mbappé after taking over in 2018, but abandoned it after a poor 2019 Copa América start and rebuilt Argentina around Messi's preferred possession game.
- Midfielders Enzo Fernández and Alexis Mac Allister, rookies at the 2022 Qatar World Cup, are now established stars whose stated job is to deliver the ball to Messi close enough to goal to create danger.
- Messi capped the win by threading a cross-field pass to Julián Álvarez for the second goal, the cross-field ball — not the finish — described in the source as the most stunning moment of the goal.
Why it matters: Messi has overtaken every player in World Cup history at an age when most strikers have retired, with 12 of his 13 goals coming after 35. The milestone reflects a tactical identity shift: Scaloni's Argentina now plays a vintage short-pass possession game designed to feed Messi in dangerous areas, replacing the rapid-transition style he originally copied from France and Mbappé.
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