Two decades after his first Argentina goal, Lionel Messi is still the man at the top of the pile. He currently leads the country’s scoring charts for 2026, meaning he has finished as Argentina’s top scorer in every calendar year since his debut season of 2006.
That longevity has defined his World Cup career too. Across six editions between 2006 and 2026, Messi has scored 21 goals and added 12 assists in 34 appearances, more combined goal contributions than any player in the tournament’s history, though Kylian Mbappé now holds the outright scoring record.
Messi’s finest World Cup campaign remains 2022, when seven goals and three assists carried Argentina to the trophy in Qatar and made him only the second player, after Ronaldo in 1998, to win the Golden Ball and the World Cup in the same tournament. At 39, he added eight goals and four assists in the 2026 edition.
His trophy cabinet with Argentina tells a similar story. He won the FIFA U-20 World Cup as a teenager in 2005 and Olympic gold three years later in Beijing, then had to wait until 2021 for his first senior international trophy, when Argentina beat Brazil to win the Copa América.
As reigning South American champions, Argentina then beat European champions Italy in the following year’s Finalissima, before Messi’s crowning moment, the World Cup triumph of 2022. A second Copa América followed in 2024.
Photo: REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
