He celebrated his 39th birthday last Wednesday and then, on his first appearance since, Lionel Messi scored his sixth goal of the campaign of the World Cup 2026 finals in Argentina’s 3-1 victory over Jordan.
French striker Just Fontaine scored a whopping 13 goals at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden and, while the Bleus legend did it in six games, it would still be, in the modern game, a phenomenal achievement to match or even beat that tally in the eight-match format. But the way Messi has started his tournament it is certainly on, with six goals in the three group games he has equalled one record, as well as becoming the first player to score in seven consecutive World Cup games.
He scored a hat-trick in La Albiceleste’s opening 3-0 win over Algeria, racking up 200 international appearances, and then bagged a double in the 2-0 victory against Austria. Messi started Argentina’s third match against Jordan on the bench, but when he climbed off on 59 minutes, he got on the scoresheet with a clever free kick. The Inter Miami star is the fifth player to score six goals at the group stage, the most recent being Russia’s Oleg Salenko at the 1994 World Cup in the USA.
Following La Albiceleste’s win over Jordan the World Cup 2026 betting odds have taken a shift towards Argentina since. What a story it would be if Messi followed up his 2022 World Cup success with another triumph in 2026 and a Golden Boot to go with it.
Can anyone catch him over the next five games? Well yes, they can; so here is the SBOTOP selection of six hitmen who have the Argentine magician in their sights.
Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele: France
Argentina had a perfect set of World Cup 2026 results at the group stage, but then so have France and Les Bleus have two forwards who are bang in form, each with four goals, trailing Messi by two and, as Dembele showed against Norway with a 32 minute hat-trick, that is a deficit which can be closed very quickly. It was a great comeback for the Paris Saint-Germain star who has suffered an injury dogged campaign and had a poor record previously in the World Cup, and his stunning hat-trick meant he has scored four for the campaign, breaking his duck in Les Bleus 3-0 win over Iraq. And he owed some of his success to his captain Mbappe who has started the tournament in electric form. His sweeping pass gave Dembele his opener against Norway and the Real Madrid star teed up his second too. Mbappe scored a double in both games against Senegal and Iraq to sit alongside Dembele on four from three games.
Vinicius Junior and Matheus Cunha: Brazil
Mbappe’s Real Madrid team-mate Vinicius is another player who seems to have shaken off a disappointing campaign with Los Blancos. He scored Brazil’s leveller in their opening 1-1 draw with Morocco and then followed that up with another strike against Haiti; but his star performance came against Scotland when he ripped through the Scots defence with a superbly taken brace, while Manchester United centre forward Matheus Cunha scored the third. Vinicius is leading the charge for Brazil, but Cunha is not out of the race, with three goals from three games.
Erling Haaland: Norway
With four goals from two games Manchester City star Haaland has as good a ratio as Messi and he may wish he hadn’t been rested for the Norwegians’ dead rubber against France. The issue Haaland has, which is greater in his case than his rivals, is that Norway are not expected to go very deep into the competition. On Tuesday the Vikings will meet the Ivory Coast at the Dallas Stadium and that won’t be easy against a team which beat Ecuador and lost by the odd goal in three to Germany.
Harry Kane: England
The Three Lions are hopeful of getting to the business end of the World Cup and they will most likely need to, for skipper Kane to challenge. The Bayern Munich ace won the World Cup Golden Boot in Russia in 2018 and his goal against Panama on Saturday made him England’s highest World Cup scorer of all time with 11 goals. He has three goals so far and, of the names in the frame he is the man who scores the lion’s share of his team’s goals, is an out and out striker and is playing for a nation with realistic hopes of making the last four at least.
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