The thing about stars is that they shine.
That was certainly the case on the sixth day of the 2026 World Cup, as Kylian Mbappé, Erling Haaland and Lionel Messi turned up to the party, and in style too.
Mbappé started things off with a brace against Senegal to create French football history, Haaland did the same for Norway vs Iraq (as in he scored two, he didn’t create French football history as far as we’re aware), but then Messi seemed to take that personally.
We only wrote about the great man yesterday and his impressive World Cup record, and we’re afraid you’ll have to read even more about him now, as today’s SVQ looks at Messi’s historic hat-trick against Algeria to equal the all-time World Cup goals record.
We’ll also cover Mbappé’s achievements, so, sorry Erling, apparently scoring twice on your World Cup debut in Norway’s first game at the tournament in 28 years isn’t quite newsworthy enough.
Messi’s treble was scored past Luca Zidane, son of another World Cup legend, Zinedine, so today’s Missing Players takes us back to the famous night in 1998 when ‘Zizou’ helped his country win their first World Cup.
Let’s not wait any longer, though, and dive headfirst into some Lionel Messi data…
🐐 STAT - Messi’s at it Again
There is something almost comforting in seeing Lionel Messi line up at a World Cup, unless of course you’re an opposition defender.
Eight days prior to his 39th birthday, the former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain superstar reminded everyone just who he is. After leading Argentina to glory in 2022, he kicked off the defence of their world title with his first ever World Cup hat-trick in a 3-0 victory over Algeria.
It was a blistering treble, with two goals from outside the box either side of a poacher’s tap-in to almost sum Messi up in one game.
Those three goals also took Messi to joint top of the World Cup all-time scoring charts, level with Germany’s Miroslav Klose (16). It would be almost surprising now if he didn’t break that record in the next week or so in Argentina’s remaining Group J games against Austria and Jordan.