Messi’s feats in the game vs Cabo Verde
*Messi became the first player in the World Cup history to reach the 20-goal mark.
*Messi has scored in his 8th consecutive World Cup match extending his competition’s record for the longest scoring run.
*Messi scored 8 consecutive Argentina’s goals taking in account only his playing time (1 goal in 2022 and 7 goals in 2026).
This streak was ended by Lisandro Martínez’s goal in the extra-time: it was Argentina’s first goal of the tournament not scored by Messi while he was on the pitch.
*Messi became the fourth player in history to score in five consecutive World Cup knockout-stage matches, following:
Leônidas (Brazil) in 1934-1938,
György Sárosi (Hungary) in 1934-1938,
Vavá (Brazil) in 1958-1962.
*Messi, with his corner kick leading to the Cuti Romero’s winning goal, became the first player to assist in 6 different World Cup editions (everyone since 2006).
The next highest, Ivan Perišić (Croatia), has managed this in four editions.
*Messi has scoring his 11th opening goal of a World Cup match.
Nearest to him (Christian Vieri, Ronaldo, David Villa) have 6 such goals each.
*Cabo Verde became the Messi’s 14th victim in World Cups; this is his record he is moving forward with each new game.
(Jürgen Klinsmann, Ronaldo and Miroslav Klose are the next with 10 teams they scored against).
*The goal scored by Messi (39 years old) against goalkeeper Vozinha (40 years old) represents a combined age of 79 years and 61 days.
This is the highest combined age of a goalscorer and the beaten goalkeeper in the history of the World Cup.
It surpassed the previous record from the game England vs Cameroon in 1990 (scorer Emmanuel Kundé and goalkeeper Peter Shilton) by more than four years.
*Messi became the first player in the history of the World Cup to score 7+ goals in two different editions (also 7 in 2022).
*Messi became the first player in the World Cup history to score in every possible round: all three group stage match-days, the Round of 32, Round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals, and the final.
*Messi became the World Cup’s all-time top scorer against African teams (7 goals).
*Messi became the first player in World Cup history to reach the milestone of 30 matches.