Yes. That is very bad. On the other hand, 21 WC goals. 9 WC games in a row on the scoresheet... and counting..
16 goals and 6 assists in the last 14 WC games. Failing to register a goal or assist in only one of the last 14 games. Ronaldo all time at WCs: 11 goals, 2 assists in 27 matches.
Would he score if he were red carded in the first game and against Egypt Argentina were down to 9 mens? Well I don't think so. Call me a hater but at this point it's a global consensus. Just write Argentina on X and you'll see non Ronaldo fans saying the same things as Ronaldo fans
It doesnt matter. He proved his football ability to score, assist and influence game in decisive manner. Better question is. Does any player in history of wc has more goal contribution across 14 games?
Did any player ever take 9 penalties across just 2 World Cups? That actually matters because, like I said, if Messi had been sent off in the opening game, none of those goals or stats would even exist. And he's about to break Brazil's all time World Cup penalty record by himself. Brazil have played every World Cup since 1930 and have only been awarded 14 penalties. Messi is already on 9 in just two tournaments. That's a crazy stat. Then look at the path. Has any player in history had an easier run than Jordan, Algeria, Cape Verde and Egypt? People compare his numbers to Pelé's era when there were only 6 games. Now there are 8. Give Just Fontaine 8 games in a tournament with 64 teams and he'd probably end up with some ridiculous goal tally too. Messi also has one of the worst goals per game ratios among the all time World Cup top scorers, maybe only Klose is lower. Just like Klose, he's getting there because of longevity. Mbappé is already only a few goals behind despite playing in 3 fewer World Cups, and he spent most of those games playing as a winger. Do people really think post 2021 Messi became a better player than prime Messi? The only things that changed after 2018 were Scaloni and the World Cup format. If Messi were still individually that dominant, he'd be playing Champions League football for Barça or another top European club instead of Inter Miami.
12 non-penalty goals and 6 assists across the last 14 matches in WC. If we discount all the games in which Messi received a penalty in that sample size: Saudi Arabia, Poland, Netherlands, Croatia, France, Austria, and Egypt, we come to: 6 non-penalty goals, 2 assists in 7 matches. Ronaldo in the last 7 matches without penalty attempts: 2 goals, 0 assists. If we discount the game vs Switzerland where he played only 17 minutes, and add a match prior to that: 2 goals, 0 assists, 7 matches.
None of that addresses my actual point. I never argued Messi only scored because of penalties. My point is that nine penalties significantly boosted his record, and that's relevant when comparing him to previous World Cup goalscorers. You're also ignoring the red card argument, the expanded tournament format, the level of opposition, the pre/post Scaloni performance, the ratio over 6 WCs, etc... Showing that Messi still had good non penalty numbers doesn't answer any of those points. It only shows he remained productive without penalties, which I never disputed
Just as a factual matter, unless I’m missing something, Messi hasn’t taken 9 penalties across two World Cups. He has taken 7 penalties across two World Cups and 8 penalties total across six World Cups. So I think data like this is a bit misleading, because the number of penalties awarded in the World Cup in general has dramatically increased over the years (probably due in significant part to VAR, but it’s also the case that penalties were just almost never awarded for the first 4 decades of the World Cup). See here for data on penalties awarded in each World Cup through 2018: https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/ogakulov/world-cup-penalties-awarded We can also see 2022 and 2026 data here: https://www.fotmob.com/leagues/77/stats/season/15338/teams/penalty_won_team and here https://www.fotmob.com/leagues/77/stats/season/24254/teams/penalty_won_team/world-cup-teams The upshot is that even with this World Cup still ongoing, there’s been more penalties awarded in the 2018/2022/2026 World Cups than there were in the first 10 World Cups combined. And in the World Cups that Messi has played in, there’s been about as many penalties awarded as there were in every World Cup from 1930 through 1990. Which is to say that Messi has played in an era in which over 40% of all World Cup penalties have been awarded. And I believe he has taken all but one of Argentina’s penalties in that timeframe (they had a penalty against Jordan this time, when Messi didn’t start). So him having taken 8 penalties in his WC career compared to 14 for Brazil in its history isn’t really all that surprising a number. It’s not far from what we’d expect on average for a top team’s penalty-taker in World Cups that encompassed 40% of all penalties awarded. It’s certainly been backloaded towards the end of his WC career, but that’s just the way small-sample statistics sometimes work, and the flip side is that Argentina got an abnormally low number of penalties in Messi’s first four WCs. Of course, that’s not even getting into the fact that the complaints about Argentina getting penalties are always argued at a macro level, rather than complaining about individual penalties. Which is presumably because there’s no particularly bad decisions to point to. And what are we doing if we are just complaining about small-sample macro-level data about referee decisions without having any particular micro-level issue with those decisions? One thing I’ll note is that I actually think Argentina had an unfortunate draw before the tournament started. Most group winners got a Round of 32 match against a third-place team. Argentina not only was one of the few group winners that got matched up with a 2nd place team, but it was the 2nd place team in a group that actually had two strong teams. This not only made them likely to face a good team in the Round of 32 when other group winners wouldn’t, but it greatly increased the risk of having to face a genuinely great team in the Round of 32 (since Spain getting 2nd in the group really was quite plausible). It didn’t turn out that way, of course, but I don’t think most other top teams would’ve wanted to switch places in the draw with Argentina before the tournament started. As it is, obviously the draw ended up opening up some for Argentina because some teams underperformed. If everything had gone as expected, they’d have faced a first three KO-stage slate of Uruguay —> Turkey —> Portugal/Colombia. This isn’t particularly easy at all. And honestly, in reality, Cape Verde and Egypt weren’t particularly easy either! Those matches were both classics, precisely because they were far from easy! So yeah, it’s hard for me to really think of these matches as stat-padding sessions when Argentina barely won. That said, your general point about the WC expanding is a legitimate one. This expanded World Cup will make it hard to compare records set before it. Players will play more WC matches than before and those matches will on average be against weaker opposition. This is the first instance of this, but great players of the future who play their entire career in this format will likely set all-time records that will be hard to compare to prior eras (which, as you suggest, was arguably already the case when comparing records with those set in previous decades when the WC was even smaller). As for Messi having the all-time WC scoring record, he’s broken the previous record by so much that it’s hard to say that competing in one expanded tournament is the reason for it. Like, if we replaced Jordan with a much better team in the group stage and then eliminated the Cape Verde KO-stage match, we’d get something approximating what a normal-sized WC would be, and Messi would still have the scoring record (with Mbappe similarly at his heels presumably). Yeah, Messi’s WC scoring record is far from his most impressive achievement. It is genuinely more about longevity than about having a massive scoring rate. But that doesn’t really matter much IMO. After all, he was considered the consensus GOAT before having this record, the record was previously held by someone who isn’t even a major all-time great (i.e. Klose), and Messi is not likely to have the record for long (Mbappe will very likely either pass him this tournament or the next, and then someone in later generations that play all their WCs in the expanded format will probably break Mbappe’s record). It’s just a fun cherry on top of his career IMO. That said, while the record is more about longevity than anything, it is worth noting that Messi has been a genuinely great scorer in the last two World Cups. If his World Cup career was even just the last three World Cups, he’d have tied Klose’s record, and he’d have as many non-penalty WC goals as Klose in just the last 4 World Cups (which is as many as Klose played in). So yeah, it’s a longevity thing, but that’s not because he’s never put up huge WC goalscoring numbers. He has 15 goals in the last two World Cups—which is super impressive even accounting for having scored 4 penalties and the expanded format watering down this WC a little. He just has also had a couple tournaments where he didn’t score much, so the overall goalscoring rate isn’t crazy. Yeah, Messi did not become a better player. Argentina started playing tactics and personnel that were more geared towards him producing goals. For instance, Messi was played in a much deeper role than normal in the 2010 WC and the 2014 Argentina team played very defensively (especially in the latter stages, which is where Messi struggled to score). In general, the 2021-onwards Argentina teams just play a style well suited to Messi and with players that are very willing to make him the attacking focal point. This has led to much more scoring for Messi and to a lot of success for the Argentine team, despite the team itself not actually having as much talent as it sometimes did in earlier years. Crucially, there’s also a bit of randomness in terms of finishing. Like, old-man Messi isn’t a better player, but when we are talking about small samples it is still possible for old-man Messi to finish better than prime Messi. And that’s exactly what has happened. Prime Messi didn’t finish well in the WC by his standards (as seen by xG data) while old-man Messi has finished very well. I doubt this would hold if each version of him played way more games, but that’s of course not how the WC works.
It's good to see you back mate. It's a long time the last time we talk. I hope it's all well with you. Some things about your response: You're contradicting yourself. You admit the expanded World Cup and VAR have changed the conditions enough to distort historical records, but then you turn around and treat Messi's recent World Cup numbers as directly comparable because of his xG and tactical role. If the conditions have changed that much, then every statistical measure from this era has to be interpreted within that context. You can't accept that the environment inflates the overall records while treating the recent numbers as fully comparable in isolation. Your xG argument doesn't solve that problem either. xG measures efficiency with the chances a player gets during a match. It doesn't measure how many opportunities the tournament format creates in the first place. If the modern World Cup gives players more matches and more favorable scoring environments, then the total volume of chances is already larger before you even look at efficiency. Being highly efficient with a larger pool of opportunities still produces much bigger totals than players from previous eras could realistically achieve. The same applies to your penalty argument. Since 2022, Argentina have been awarded eight penalties, while England, the second highest team, have only four. Argentina are a clear outlier even within the VAR era. So saying it's simply normal for Messi to have almost as many World Cup penalties as Brazil have earned in their entire history since 1930 doesn't really fit the evidence.
My point with Messi and the expanded format is that this is his first time playing in this format and he’s broken the previous record by so much that he pretty clearly would’ve broken it even if this tournament were held under the old format. We dont know exactly what would happen, but if you take out the group-stage match against the worst opponent and eliminate the Round of 32, then the remaining matches are the types of matches we’d still see under the old format, and Messi would still have 19 goals (3 above the prior record). So yeah, I think there’s good reason to believe it’s very likely he’d have broken the record even if the format hadn’t changed. That said, that is a totally different hypothetical world, so we don’t know exactly what would’ve happened, and I think it’s fine if someone wants to essentially asterisk any records for players that have touched the new format at all. I just think we should keep in mind that Messi likely would have broken the record either way. As for the penalties, yeah they’ve had a particularly large amount in the last couple WCs, even for the VAR era. But they also had an abnormally low amount of penalties in the previous 4 World Cups Messi played in. So when we look at the full sample of Messi’s career, the overall picture isn’t that abnormal looking, even if it might look like that if we zoomed into just a particular small-sample subset of the data. And again, I’d emphasize that none of the penalties Argentina have gotten in recent world cups are actually particularly controversial individually. Which is suggestive of them just randomly deserving a lot of penalties after having randomly not deserved many for several WCs before that.
You're assuming football works in a way where you can change one variable and everything else stays exactly the same. That's not how tournaments work. If you remove the expanded format and the extra matches against weaker teams, you also change the physical demands on an older player, the team's margin for error, and the way the tournament unfolds. Your model treats everything else as fixed when it clearly wouldn't be. There's also actual evidence that the environment changed. The 2026 World Cup had the highest goals per game since 1958, and analysts have pointed to the expanded format as one of the reasons because it created more mismatches between strong and weak teams. So this wasn't just a tournament with more matches. It also produced more scoring opportunities across the board. The straightforward explanation is that attacking numbers became easier to accumulate under those conditions. Your explanation requires assuming the expanded format, the higher scoring environment, the different bracket, and the weaker early opposition had little or no effect on Messi's numbers. You're also assuming the knockout path would stay the same. It wouldn't. A smaller tournament changes the bracket from the very beginning. Argentina wouldn't necessarily face the same opponents or reach the same rounds under the same circumstances. So taking Messi's numbers from the current format and dropping them into a completely different tournament doesn't tell us what would have happened. It's just a hypothetical scenario. That also makes your conclusion impossible to test. You're defending a real record by appealing to a completely different version of the tournament that never existed. Once the argument depends on an imaginary World Cup with different teams, a different bracket, and different circumstances, there's no way to verify whether the conclusion is true. At that point, it becomes speculation rather than evidence.
Right. That’s why I said “we don’t know exactly what would happen.” Obviously it’s inherently a hypothetical so there’s lots of variables that would change. But it’s hard to really feel like Messi breaking the record is just a product of the format change when he’d be at 19 goals even if we take out the easiest group stage match and the Round of 32 match. Would he have scored that many goals in a different world where the format wasn’t changed? It’s possible he wouldn’t have. But given what happened in reality, it seems likely he still would’ve. Okay, but if we discount the easiest group stage match that Argentina played and the Round of 32, then we are left with matches that could’ve easily happened under the old format. Like, Austria and Algeria very likely would’ve qualified either way. These were teams that were in the top 32 teams in the world in terms of elo rating prior to the tournament (and still are top 32), with Austria being 23rd and Algeria being 29th. Messi scored enough goals just against them to have broken the record. In a world without the expanded format, would Argentina have necessarily gotten put in a group with those two teams? Perhaps not. And maybe Messi wouldn’t score as much against whatever equivalent but different teams he’d have faced in that world. But again, it’s hard to really think the format change is the proximate cause of him breaking the record, when he broke the record in games against teams that very likely would’ve made the tournament either way. As a sidenote, I’d be hesitant to assume the increased scoring must just be about the format. There have been lots of significant fluctuations in goals per game across WC history, without format changes. For instance, the jump in scoring from 2010 to 2014 is bigger than this jump. Tactical shifts have a significant effect on this stuff. And regardless, if Messi broke the record just in games with teams that would’ve made it either way, then the fact that Germany destroyed a Curaçao team that would not have made the tournament in the past (or a similar thing with Canada vs. Qatar) isn’t really good reason to think Messi only broke the record because of the format change. He didn’t break the record with goals in mismatched games that couldn’t have occurred in the prior format. Yeah, again, if the format changed then a lot of factors would be different. Would Argentina have faced Egypt in the Round of 16 with a different format? Perhaps not. But Egypt made the last 16, so I think we can say they are pretty representative of what a last 16 opponent would be like regardless of format. And regardless, Messi would’ve broken the record just with Algeria and Austria—which again were top 32 elo rating teams, rather than being teams that were only in the tournament because of the format change. So yeah, any conclusion about what would happen in a hypothetical world is inherently impossible to test. I’m not making a claim about what definitely would’ve happened. Rather, I’m making a probabilistic claim. If Messi easily broke the record in reality just counting games that were against the types of opponents that he’d face in the prior WC format as well, then it seems very likely he’d have broken the record without the format change. And we certainly can’t really say that the format change is the proximate cause of him breaking the record. The best you can say IMO is that we don’t know *for sure* that he’d have broken the record because a lot of things would’ve changed in that hypothetical world. I’d agree with that. But the likelihood seems high based on what we’ve observed in reality. And a formalistic butterfly-effect argument that we don’t know for sure what would happen doesn’t seem like a good reason to downplay Messi breaking the record. _________ One other fact I’d note on the penalties thing: To take the same example of Brazil, it is also the case that France in 2018 + 2022 + 2026 has had more penalties in the knockout stages of the World Cup than Brazil has had in the knockout stages in its entire WC history (and that’s even counting the old second group stage matches as knockout stage matches). Is this indicative of some kind of corruption in France’s favor? Or is it just a combination of the fact that penalties are more common now, France has been a strong team that is good at getting in the box and drawing penalties, and some luck/randomness? I don’t think it makes much sense to take data like this and assume corruption is the cause. And that’s especially the case when the individual penalties themselves aren’t even particularly controversial. Heck, the penalty France got yesterday was actually probably a more controversial penalty than any penalties Argentina has gotten with Messi!
On the same logic, will it be fair to say maradona was unlucky not to have one penalty taken in 4 world cups? They got one against El Salvador in 1982 which was taken by passarella I think.
Well, you're treating a player like a video game character whose performance stays the same no matter what happened before. Football doesn't work that way. An older player's level is affected by accumulated fatigue. The expanded format gave Messi more opportunities to reach matches against teams like Austria and Algeria with fresher legs and less physical wear because the overall path was less demanding. You can't assume those same performances would automatically happen in a shorter and more difficult tournament. You're also reversing cause and effect. You're using the goals Messi actually scored against those opponents to argue he would probably have done the same in the old format. But those matches happened under the conditions created by the expanded tournament. The order of the opponents, the amount of rest, the physical condition of the players, and the path Argentina took were all shaped by that format. In a smaller World Cup, the group stage would have been more demanding from the start, which changes the physical and tactical context of every match that follows. So your probability argument ends up resting on a scenario that never existed. You can't separate ninety minutes from the rest of the tournament and treat them as if they happened in a vacuum. A player's performance in a knockout match depends on everything that came before it. Once the tournament changes, the conditions that produced those performances change as well.
O/T a bit but you guys got me thinking about US and Mexican strikers at their prime and how they compared in club/country.
Harry kane: 7 penalties taken , 17 matches Lionel messi: 8 penalties taken, 31 matches. Eusebio: 4 penalties in 5 world cup matches. Messi :8 penalties in 31 wc matches. Doomsday arrives only when argentina is awarded a penalty.
Okay, but this is still just a “In a hypothetical world, a lot of factors would change, so a player could potentially do far less well than they did in reality” argument. I don’t actually disagree with that conclusion (it’s right about basically any hypothetical), but it’s kind of sidestepping a probabilistic point. The fact is that Messi easily broke the record just from games against teams that very plausibly could’ve been drawn into a group with Argentina in the prior format. Does that mean that Messi definitely would’ve broken the record in the prior format? No, because a ton of factors would’ve changed. Heck, maybe under a different format Messi would’ve had a career-ending injury 1 minute into the first WC match. Anything could’ve happened. But we do actually have what we’ve seen in reality, and the fact is that the hypothetical world would’ve had to go a lot worse for Messi than reality did in order for Messi to not break the record under the old format. That could’ve happened, but I think it’s clearly not the best bet, given that our predictions should probably be anchored to some degree on how reality went. Anyways, more importantly, I think it’s worth stepping back from the question of what would’ve happened in a hypothetical world. That’s inherently not really knowable, even if reality can give us a basis on which to guess. So it’s not a great basis on which to judge a player. What IS knowable is that Messi easily broke the record and he did so just from games against top 32 teams. So even if we grant that going back in time and changing the format would change so many things that we don’t really know what would’ve happened, I think it’s basically impossible to say that his goalscoring record is cheapened in any meaningful way by the format change. He literally easily broke the WC goalscoring record just on the basis of (1) goals scored before the format change; and (2) goals scored after the format change but against top 32 teams. It would be very different if he got the goalscoring record on the back of putting up 5 goals against Curacao or something, but that’s not at all what happened. And if him achieving the goalscoring record isn’t actually cheapened by the format change, then there’s not really much of a meaningful point in talking about how a hypothetical world could’ve potentially gone less well for him. What happened has happened, and the fact is that he didn’t get the record on the basis of facing weak teams that wouldn’t have made the tournament before.
The problem with that comparison is that facing Austria or Algeria in the expanded World Cup isn't automatically equivalent to facing them in the old format. The difficulty of a match isn't determined only by where a team sits in the Elo rankings. It also depends on the context of the tournament. With sixty four teams, more qualification spots, and a larger margin for error, the competitive environment changes. The opponent may have the same name, but the demands of the match are not necessarily the same. Another thing you're overlooking is how those numbers came to exist in the first place. You argue that because the goals came against Top 32 teams, the expanded format wasn't responsible for the record. But the format affects much more than the name of the opponent. It influences how much energy a veteran player has left, how much pressure the team faces before reaching those matches, and the overall physical and mental demands of the tournament. Those conditions help determine how well a player performs once he reaches the later rounds. There's another issue with the reasoning. You're using numbers that were produced under the conditions of the 2026 World Cup to argue that those same conditions had no meaningful effect on the numbers. That assumes the very point you're trying to prove instead of demonstrating it.
Pele has 12 goals and between 8 to 10 assists in 14 games. Though he was injured after 25 minutes in the second group game in 1962 (a draw). He was also injured in the loss against Portugal in 1966 having previously missed the loss against Hungary. His record across those 14 games is 12 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss. The two games he didn't win were when he played on after being injured in both. They were also the only two games Pele played in a WC where he failed to register a goal or assist. With modern substitution rules its almost guaranteed that he would have been subbed in both games so his output metrics per minute would improve (not insignificantly given the small sample size). Additionally Pele' matches were more evenly distributed across knockout and group games especially in we reduce the minutes we're counting for the matches where he was injured and couldn't be substituted. Pele played in 8 group stage games (injured in 2) and 6 knockout games. Messi has played in 19 group stage games and 12 knockout games (with more to come tbf). Pele also played much stronger group stage competition than Messi imo and I don't think this is arguable. In 1958 Brazil/Pele played the soon to be European champions USSR in their last group game (having also faced England and Austria with Pele missing through injury). He got an assist on WC debut, his only assist for that tournament as we've recently settled on in the Pele official games thread. He them went on to score the winner in the QF, 3 in the SF and 2 in the final. In 1962 Pele started in fine form against Mexico with a tremendous goal (dribbling by/through 4 players) and an excellent crossed assist to Zagallo for a diving header in a 2-0 win. He was then injured midway through the first half against the eventual tournament finalists Czech team and Brazil saw out a 0-0 draw. In 66 he played and scored against Bulgaria, was targeted and aggravated an injury before sitting out versus Hungary. Then played as Brazil desperately needed a win and was brutalised and left limping around. Brazil cashed out to eventual semi finalists Portugal in humiliating fashion at the group stage. Portugal had one of the outstanding performers of that WC with Eusebio being on fine form throughout. After a brief international retirement post 66 and a turbulent time with a coach who he didn't seem to get on with upon his return to the national team, there were doubts about his ability to perform at the highest level since returning to the team. Pele went on to play in an adapted role in the famous five tens team providing goals/assists in every match including a goal and two assists in the final. Brasil faced the reigning world champions and one of the favourites for the title in their group stage. Kocsis scored 11 goals in 5 games in 54. Fontaine 13 in 6 in 58. Both may well have got some assists in there too. According to tranfermarkt, haven't double checked these, Muller has 14 goals and 6 assists in 13 WC games. Covering just the same time period so forgetting the above players, Mbappe has 20 goals and 6 assists from 20 games. From just his last 14 games over the exact same time frame as Messi Mbappe has 17 goals and 5 assists including 4 goals in WC finals. Not sure exactly what it would look like if we exclude penalties but dont think it makes too much difference. It's an amazing record for Messi. It does also of highlight the interesting aspect of how WC performances are judged in relation to a player's legacy. It's hard to argue Messi is a better player in 2022 than 2010 or 2026 than 2014 yet in terms of his WC legacy it's almost night and day!
Lionel Messi managed just 3 shots on target during Argentina's 4 games in the World Cup knockout stages. #ARG pic.twitter.com/JwvnNPPEvg— Squawka (@Squawka) July 14, 2014 Golden Ball winner, by the way. Three shots on target in the entire 2014 World Cup knockout stages. And this is supposedly one of the greatest individual World Cup campaigns ever. Maradona 86 vs. Messi 14 | Page 142 | BigSoccer Forum Jesus wept. There is nowhere near the gulf people pretend exists between scoring against third tier World Cup opposition and scoring in MLS. Yes Absolutely nobody can convince me that an Argentine player scoring multiple goals against Algeria,Jordan,Bosnia,Iran etc is inherently far more impressive than an Inter Miami player scoring multiple goals against Nashville or Orlando City. And not enough detail was given in your post about why Pelé scoring non penalty goals against the 1958 version of Sweden and 1966 version of Bulgaria was meaningful Please educate these vagabonds about Dimitar Yakimov,Kurt Hamrin ,Gunnar Gren,Georgi Naydenov,Nils Liedholm and Georgi Asparuhov.
What Ronaldo Fanboys arguing here? Who cares Messi score x amount goals and assist? Messi is beyond goal assists his influence and leadership on this Argentine Team is on another level. Even his dribble, key pass, chance create at he age of 39 in this world cup is extraordinary for his age. Which player perform even close to his level at 39? We are not taking about Fillipo Inzaghi or Cristiano Ronaldo who wait in penalty box and have Zero dribble success in two world cup of 22 and 26.