When Lionel Messi scored his first goal for Argentina against Algeria in the 2026 World Cup, he became very emotional. He could not hold back his tears. He lifted the front of his white and blue jersey and wiped them away. Messi has rarely been so emotional at other times. He seemed more and more confident. After the first goal, he looked different.

Then he scored the second goal and the third goal. The hat-trick was complete. In this way, the question of Messi's hamstring injury was answered. He is approaching 39 years old, but he has started playing better and better, and that too without anyone noticing. With this brilliant hat-trick, Messi also equaled the record for the most goals (16) in the name of Germany's Miroslav Klose.

After the game, Messi said, ‘Many people may wonder why I cried after the first goal. The last few days have been very difficult for me and not all of them are related to football. That’s why I got a little emotional. At this moment, I want to thank my teammates, the coaching staff and the officials, everyone has helped me a lot.’

Messi did not want to reveal what those reasons were outside of football. After the game, coach Lionel Scaloni also seemed speechless. All he said was, ‘I don’t have words to say about Messi. What can I say? He is a truly great player.’ Messi has been playing in the World Cup for two decades. But it is only now that he has scored a hat-trick.

His World Cup debut was against Serbia and Montenegro. In that match, Messi scored a goal. He has scored in all the World Cups he has played in, with one exception, which is the 6th edition of the World Cup. The number of goals he has scored in these World Cups has reached 16. Until a few days ago, Messi was not in a position to break Klose's record. But now it suddenly seems easy. He has scored hat-tricks many times in his playing career, that is 61 times.

Of those, the three-goal performance for his country is 11 times. He had to wait a long time for the World Cup hat-trick. Messi spoke to the media at length after defeating Algeria. He said, 'I am very happy now. Whatever challenges came in my life, I faced them.' I'm really enjoying playing football now.'

It wasn't just Messi who was in the news on Wednesday, but Kylian Mbappe of France and Erling Haaland of Norway were also in the news. France easily defeated Senegal 3-1 with the help of Mbappe's two goals. Mbappe's goal tally has also reached 14. On the other hand, Haaland scored two goals in Norway's 4-1 win over Iraq. While Argentina's game was going on, Haaland wrote on Snapchat, 'Messi is unique.'

Mbappe is also an influential striker in modern football. Under his inspiration, France won the title in Russia in 2018 and reached the final in Qatar 2022. In Qatar, despite Mbappe scoring a hat-trick in the final, France proved unlucky, and Messi's Argentina became the champion.

This is Mbappe's third World Cup. He took his tally to 14 with two goals against Senegal. He scored four in Russia and eight in Qatar. Mbappe is one goal behind Brazilian Ronaldo. Ronaldo, who has played in four World Cups, has scored 15 goals in four World Cups.

Messi was injured while playing for Inter Miami before the World Cup. But the eight-time Ballon d'Or winner also played in a friendly against Iceland last week, and he did not show any problems. He scored a goal from the penalty spot in that too. He spent 20 minutes on the field and performed excellently during that time. Messi says, 'I am playing my sixth World Cup, I still feel good physically.'