Twenty years after his first World Cup goal, Lionel Messi finally got his first World Cup hat trick — and he picked the 2026 opener to do it. Argentina rolled Algeria in Group J, and by the hour mark Messi already had a brace that had the Arrowhead crowd losing its mind.
Messi's second goal puts Argentina up 2-0 just before the hour.
The third one is the one that rewrites the record book. Around the 75th minute the scoreboard flipped from 2-0 to 3-0, and Messi wheeled away knowing he'd just pulled level with the all-time World Cup goal-scoring record. First-ever World Cup hat trick. In the opener. At 38-going-on-forever years old.
The hat-trick goal as it unfolded on the FOX broadcast.
If you wanted to feel something, the Spanish call on Telemundo was the place to be. Two decades after that first goal in Germany 2006, the same #10 was getting the same MESSI MESSI MESSI treatment from a booth that has had a lot of practice.
Telemundo's call of Messi's third, exactly 20 years after his first World Cup goal.
And then there was the scene. Kansas City is supposed to be Patrick Mahomes' building, but for one night Arrowhead was a sea of light blue and white, with flags from Neuquen to Jujuy draped over every concourse railing. Argentina doesn't travel — Argentina relocates. Messi was masterful on Mahomes' field, half of Europe slept through it, and the rest of us got to watch the GOAT tie a record on American soil. What a night to kick off a World Cup.
Argentina fans flooding the Arrowhead concourse with flags and chants.