Lionel Messi became the World Cup’s all-time leading goalscorer on Monday, scoring twice as holders Argentina powered into the last 32 with a 2-0 victory over Austria.<\/p>\n
Messi swept home a low finish in the 38th minute of the Group J game in Arlington, Texas to take his career World Cup goals tally to 17, one clear of the previous record of 16 he shared with Miroslav Klose.<\/p>\n
He then extended his record to 18 goals, ramming home a finish through a crowd of defenders deep in stoppage time to put the seal on Argentina’s win.<\/p>\n
The eight-time Ballon D’Or winner, who turns 39 on Wednesday, had blown a chance to break the record after eight minutes when he dragged a penalty wide of the post.<\/p>\n
But the Argentina skipper made no mistake seven minutes before half-time, coolly placing his finish beyond the dive of Austrian goalkeeper Alexander Schlager.<\/p>\n
He then completed his double in the fifth minute of stoppage time to take his tally for the tournament to five goals following his hat-trick in Argentina’s opening 3-0 win over Algeria last week.<\/p>\n
Monday’s victory guarantees Argentina a place in the knockout rounds of the tournament, and the South Americans could clinch top spot later Monday if Jordan fail to beat Algeria.<\/p>\n
“I’m very happy with the victory,” Messi said afterwards. “It was hugely important, tough, hard-fought, and it gives us peace of mind for what’s ahead. The match was evenly balanced, intense, and we’re happy to have earned six points.”<\/p>\n
Read how the game unfolded below:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi became the World Cup’s all-time leading goalscorer on Monday, scoring twice as holders Argentina powered into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-490441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490441","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=490441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}