Making history is the heartbeat of a world champion’s career. The average athlete may feel the 2026 World Cup is out of reach, as Lionel Messi will turn 39 in June 2026, but as we have learned from two decades of unbelievably brilliant play, Messi is anything but ordinary.
The 2026 World Cup, to be hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, will very well be the last time we see the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner on the world stage representing his country, but it will also be the final set of statistics that will produce an unbelievable feat not done by any other player before Messi.
He may not realize it while preparing for Argentina to try to defend their title, but when Messi takes the field in Russia, he's playing for more than just a trophy. He's playing to be number one all by himself. Below are the milestones that the Argentina captain could achieve this summer.
1. The Captain’s Dynasty: Back-to-Back Glory
Argentina has a rare chance at this tournament to put itself in the illustrious football dynasties club. Up to now, only two countries have been able to keep their World Cup crown: Italy (1934, 1938) and Brazil (1958, 1962). But the reality is, a new leader gets crowned in quite an exhausting interval of time in history.
2. Hunting Klose: The All-Time Scoring Crown
In his prolific nature, the "unreachables" turn to the inevitable. The Argentina captain is sitting at the moment on 13 goals at a World Cup, spread across five editions, on par with the greatest of all time, 1958 Golden Boot winner Just Fontaine.
3. Defying Time: The Oldest Finalist Scorer
It has been more than six decades since the record for the oldest player to score a goal in a World Cup final was set. If you ask me who it is, I would say the Swedish legend and the AC Milan great who scored against Brazil in the 1958 final at the age of 35 years, 264 days is the one who holds the record.
If Argentina makes it through this exhausting 48-team World Cup format and reaches back-to-back World Cup Finals, Messi will break Liedholm’s record at age 39 if he scores any goal at all. This would put a poetic end to Messi’s journey from being a teenager to the greatest living soccer player of all time.
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