Published on 6/27/2026
As the world awaits the qualifying rounds of the 2026 World Cup, the number “916” stands out as an important milestone in the history of football, as it is the goal tally reached by Argentine legend Lionel Messi, putting him close to the 1,000-goal mark.
Messi is no longer just a prominent striker, but has turned into a scoring phenomenon that defies the logic of time and biology. With his arrival at the 2026 World Cup in the United States, the player still continues to raise expectations, exceeding the estimates that years ago indicated the approaching end of his golden era, turning his career into a steady and organized march towards the historic barrier of a thousand goals.
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From the beginning to the top
The story of the goals began on May 1, 2005, when Messi scored his first goal for Barcelona against Albacete, a goal that made him at that time the youngest scorer in the club’s history.
Since that moment, the scoring development continued, with Messi covering a distance of 7,717 days, according to a report published by The Athletic, leading up to his scoring a hat-trick against Algeria during the current World Cup, thus becoming the oldest player to achieve this achievement in the history of the World Cup, before then scoring two more goals against Austria.
Opta data indicates the geographical and professional distribution of these goals across clubs and teams, as Messi scored 672 goals with Barcelona, 122 with Argentina, 90 with Inter Miami, and 32 with Paris Saint-Germain.
Map of objectives and nodes of South Africa
Messi’s goals are not limited to Spanish and American stadiums only, but his ability to push goalkeepers to rethink their career path extended across the globe, from Chile to Japan, all the way to England and Scotland. However, this global map witnesses a noticeable absence of South Africa, as the 2010 World Cup is the only World Cup tournament in which Messi participated without being able to score.
This absence is precisely what explains the success of his historic rival, the Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo, in setting an amazing record earlier this week, of scoring during six different editions of the World Cup. This is a number that Messi’s chances of equaling seem almost non-existent, unless the 2030 edition brings unexpected surprises.
Despite not scoring in 2010, Messi is the top scorer in the World Cup with 18 goals (when the report was prepared), after surpassing German Miroslav Klose, who scored 16 goals.
No goals in the first minute
Opta records indicate that Messi has never succeeded in scoring within the first 60 seconds of any match. Despite this absence, Messi succeeded in scoring goals in every subsequent minute between the 2nd and 90th minutes, in addition to an abundant tally of goals in stoppage time, which highlights a unique detail for a player who is accustomed to walking on the field while others run, as if scoring too early is not compatible with his style.
Performance analysis
The year 2012 was the pinnacle of Messi’s goalscoring empire, with him scoring 91 goals in one calendar year. This number does not represent just a statistic, but rather confirms Messi’s scoring independence from his former coach, Pep Guardiola, as the flow of goals continued after the latter’s departure from Barcelona in the same summer. These goals were supported by 61 hat-tricks in his career, including 9 in 2012 alone.
