Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 of France<\/a> and Erling Haaland of Norway \u2014 who had big games today. Mbapp\u00e9 scored twice in France\u2019s 3-1 win over Senegal earlier in the day and is tied for fourth on the World Cup scoring list with 14, while Haaland scored twice for Norway in its 4-1 win over Iraq.<\/p>\nMessi, who turns 39 next week, had been dealing with a minor hamstring injury with Inter Miami that slowed him in the lead-up to the World Cup. But the eight-time winner of the Ballon d’Or, which honors global football’s best player, had no problems in a tuneup last week with Iceland, scoring on a penalty kick while playing 20 minutes.<\/p>\n
Messi’s appearance against Algeria was the 200th of his international career, which began in 2005 at the age of 18. The only players with more are Portugal’s Ronaldo, who will play in his 229th on Wednesday, and Bader al-Mutawa, who played in 202 for Kuwait.<\/p>\n
Argentina is among four teams making their base camp in the Kansas City metro, and much as it has the rest of the world, Messi-mania has swept through the area ever since La Albiceleste’s arrival about two weeks ago.<\/p>\n
On match day, thousands of fans wearing his No. 10 jersey trekked into the home of the NFL\u2019s Chiefs on the outskirts of Kansas City, singing odes to their hero from Rosario. Meanwhile, during a watch party at the downtown Power & Light District, a goat accompanied by former NFL quarterback-turned Fox broadcaster Jameis Winston came on stage wearing an Argentina jersey.<\/p>\n
The humorous moment seemed to have foreshadowed a big night for Messi when he scored an hour later, and the argument that he is football’s GOAT \u2014 the greatest of all time \u2014 is becoming no argument at all with every World Cup goal he scores.<\/p>\n
Watch all matches at the World Cup with an event pass on TVNZ+<\/a> | All Whites games free-to-view on TVNZ1 and TVNZ+<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi delivered his first World Cup hattrick while matching Miroslav Klose’s career tournament scoring record, giving thousands…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2966,111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-481510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Lionel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/lionel-messi-celebrates-against-algeria-LIX7VJDC6NAVXHVMVAPFPZV7IY.jpg\")
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