Lionel Messi has become the all-time leading goalscorer in World Cup history, scoring twice in Argentina's 2-0 win over Austria to take his tally to 18 goals across six tournaments and move past Germany's Miroslav Klose, who held the record with 16. The brace, in a Group J match at the stadium in Arlington, Texas, carried the defending champions toward the knockout rounds and added another superlative to a career already without parallel.
Messi, 38, opened the scoring in the 38th minute, finishing a low cross from Facundo Medina with the trademark precision that has defined his career, after earlier missing a penalty. He sealed the win and the record in stoppage time, pouncing on a rebound after Julián Álvarez's shot was blocked as Argentina caught Austria on the counter. The two goals took him to five for the 2026 tournament and 18 in World Cup play overall.
The milestone places Messi alone atop a list he had been climbing for two decades, since his first World Cup goal as a teenager in 2006. He matched Klose's 16 with a hat-trick in Argentina's tournament opener and then surged clear against Austria. The tally also surpasses the 17 World Cup goals scored by Brazil's Marta, the women's record-holder, leaving Messi as the outright leader across both the men's and women's tournaments.
It made him the third player to score in six successive World Cups, and extended a body of work that already includes the 2022 title in Qatar, when he led Argentina to the trophy. Now playing in what is widely expected to be his final World Cup, the 39th and 40th tournament goals — should they come — would only widen a gap that may stand for generations.
"If anyone thought this group was better off without Leo, today it became clear that Leo is the most important of them all," said midfielder Alexis Mac Allister, capturing the sense within the squad that Messi remains the decisive figure even as a new generation of forwards has grown around him.
The win lifted Argentina toward the top of Group J and the knockout stage, reinforcing the holders' status among the favorites at a tournament being co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico. Messi has 121 goals in 201 appearances for his country, figures that underline how central he remains to the Argentine side even at 38.
For a player whose international career once seemed destined to be defined by near-misses before the 2022 triumph, the record is another chapter in a late-career run that has rewritten the sport's history books. With the knockout rounds ahead, Messi has the chance to extend the mark further — and, perhaps, to chase a second World Cup title to go with the record now in his name.