Messi may own the world, and the World Cup, but he doesn’t own the United States
Michael Jordan has not played a basketball game since 2003, and he could not go anywhere in the world without being recognized while his equivalent in soccer continues to play, and he could walk up and down most streets in the United States without being stopped.
Argentinian Lionel Messi is the most beautiful player the beautiful game has ever seen, and on his third visit to DFW he broke one of those impossible records that “will never be broken.”
Messi’s two goals in Argentina’s 2-0 win over Austria on Monday in group play of this World Cup gives him the most career goals — 18 — in the history of the tournament. He did this two days before he will turn 39.
Watching his native Argentinians lose their collective minds at his goal was like watching an entire family celebrate their youngest son winning a gold medal and an Academy Award. This record is theirs as much as is it his.
To reach a milestone this high requires not just cosmic alignment but a degree of lottery-winning luck, and God-given skill that is not wasted.
The irony is that he is the most popular athlete in the world, and all of that power and fame still only gets you so much here in America. Football has come so far in the last 30 years in the United States, and it’s still not within a T-shirt cannon’s shot of the other football that rules from sea to shining sea.
Messi’s impossible World Cup record
Messi’s record will not register here like Jerry Rice’s career mark for most touchdowns in NFL history or Nolan Ryan’s mark for strikeouts by an MLB pitcher because it’s soccer.
To score 18 career goals in the World Cup is just as impressive as anything an athlete can do because of the number of moving parts that must work over a sustained period of time.
1. The team has to qualify for the World Cup. Argentina is consistently one of the best teams in the world, and it’s always “around it.” If they weren’t good, Messi would not be near this mark.
2. The player must be picked to be on the team. In the last year or two, there was chatter and debate whether Messi would actually be selected to join the national team again. It’s hard to be great at 38.
Most players are fortunate to play in three World Cups. This 2026 World Cup is Messi’s sixth.
3. The team must advance in World Cup matches. There is no way Messi hits this mark without the team consistently advancing out of the group stages to play enough games, thus giving him more opportunities to score.
4. The player must stay healthy. When a player crosses 30, health increasingly becomes the hardest target to hit. Thanks to advances in nutrition, strength and physiology-based training, top-end players are doing things in their late 30s and into their 40s that were previously only for the 20 somethings.
Messi is now in the same chat room as Tom Brady, LeBron James and Novak Djokovic as pro athletes who can still do it late in their athletic lives.
5. The player must finish. If and when a player hits all of these criteria, they must actually score when the chance is there. He’s almost 39, and he has not lost the touch.
Messi nearly notched the record early in the win against Austria when he took a penalty kick, but that one sailed just to the right of the goal.
No matter, he scored it later in the first half when he chipped in a cross from teammate Facundo Medina to send the natives into euphoria. Messi added his second goal with a few minutes remaining in the match, which prompted the fans to chant “Mess-i! Messi-i!”
Where does Messi rank in America?
Put Messi in a restaurant in America, and there’s a decent chance he can eat in peace, whereas Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes could not.
If Messi is walking down the street in downtown Phoenix, and Steph Curry is across the block, one of these two is far more apt to be stopped than the other. It’s the shorter one. Do the same thing in Paris, London, Tokyo, Mexico City or Beijing, and this is a different conversation.
Soccer has a viable home, and a secure footprint in the United States, which was the goal when FIFA plopped its World Cup here for the first time in 1994. Major League Soccer now has 30 clubs, and Americans now are part of the fabric of following the English Premier League, Germany’s Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A, Spain’s La Liga, et al.
Whatever a naysayer of the sport in this country wants to say about it, professional soccer and expectations for the national teams are part of the American sports culture now.
There is also a reason why a player like Messi now plays for Inter Miami CF of MLS as opposed to playing the final years of his career at a top league in Europe.
He can keep playing, make good money and enjoy a degree of privacy and solitude he cannot virtually any place else on earth.
Messi is the rare instance of a player who can control the world with his feet, but not America.
This story was originally published June 22, 2026 at 2:53 PM.
