Lionel Messi Lionel Andrés Messi (; born 24 June 1987), also known as Leo Messi, is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a forward for club Paris Saint-Germain and captains the Argentina national team. Widely regarded as one of the ...

is an Argentine professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who has represented the Argentina national football team as a forward since his debut in 2005. Since then, Messi has scored 98 goals in 172 international appearances, making him the country's all-time top scorer; he surpassed

Gabriel Batistuta Gabriel Omar Batistuta (; born 1 February 1969) is an Argentine former professional footballer. During his playing career, Batistuta was nicknamed Batigol () as well as El Ángel Gabriel (; Spanish for ''Angel Gabriel''). Regarded as one of th ...

's record of 54 goals with a

free kick A free kick is an action used in several codes of football to restart play with the kicking of a ball into the field of play. Association football In association football, the free kick is a method of restarting the game following an offe ...

against the

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in the semi-final of the

Copa América Centenario The Copa América Centenario ( pt, Copa América Centenário, french: Coupe Amerique Centennaire, en, Centennial Cup America; literally ''Centennial America Cup'') was an international men's association football tournament that was hosted by the ...

on 21 June 2016. He also holds the record for most goals by a South American male, surpassing Pelé‘s 77 goals with a hat-trick against Bolivia in September 2021. Messi made his debut for Argentina in a 2–1 away win over

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on 17 August 2005, and scored his first international goal a year later in his sixth appearance, against

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. Messi's goal against Serbia and Montenegro, on 16 June 2006, at the age of 18 years and 357 days, made him the youngest-ever scorer for Argentina at a

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

. He has scored eight international

hat-tricks A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wi ...

, and has netted twice in a match on ten occasions. In a June 2022 friendly against

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

, Messi scored five goals in a match for Argentina for the first time. Out of all his opponents, Messi has scored the most against Bolivia, netting eight goals in total. 29 of Messi's goals have come in FIFA World Cup qualifiers. Additionally, he has netted 13 in the Copa América, leading his team to victory in the 2021 edition of the tournament; furthermore, he also reached the final with Argentina in 2007, 2015 and

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. At the 2015 Copa América, he allegedly rejected the tournament's

Best Player ''Best Player'' is a 2011 comedy television film that aired on Nickelodeon on March 13, 2011. The movie stars Jerry Trainor and Jennette McCurdy, from the show ''iCarly''. Filming started on October 24, 2009 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canad ...

award, and the trophy was omitted from the ceremony. Nonetheless, he received the Best Player award and accepted it for his performances in the 2021 tournament. Messi has scored thirteen times in FIFA World Cup tournaments, a record for Argentina; Messi netted once in 2006, four in

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, when he guided his team to

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, being awarded the Golden Ball for best player, once in

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and another seven in

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, when he captained Argentina to their third World Cup, scoring twice in

and winning the Golden Ball for a record second time. The remainder of Messi's goals, 44, have come in friendlies.

Goals

: ''Scores and results list Argentina's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Messi goal.''

Hat-tricks

Suisse vs Argentine - Granit Xhaka & Lionel Messi crop

Statistics

Olympic goals

References

External links