Messi breaks Roger Milla's record as oldest player to score multiple goals in World Cup match

Lionel Messi opened the 2026 World Cup with one of the most striking individual performances of his international career: a hat-trick against Algeria (3-0) in Kansas City on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, which earned him two historic records.

With these three goals, the Inter Miami forward joins German Miroslav Klose at the top of the all-time World Cup goalscoring chart with 16 goals in total.

But it is another record, more unexpected, that Messi claimed that evening. According to Opta, the Argentine is now the oldest player to have scored multiple goals in a single World Cup match. At 38 years and 357 days, he surpasses Roger Milla, who achieved this feat at 38 years and 34 days at the 1990 World Cup in Italy — nearly ten months earlier in his life.

Milla’s performance at that 1990 World Cup remains one of the most romantic in football history. Emerging from international retirement to answer Cameroon’s call, the forward was instrumental in the Indomitable Lions’ run to the quarter-finals — the country’s best result in the competition. He scored four goals in five matches, including a brace against Romania in the group stage and another against Colombia in the round of 16.

Thirty-five years later, Messi, an eight-time Ballon d’Or winner, continues to push back the limits of what age seemed to allow at the highest level.