Дэлхийн аваргын түүхэнд 21 гоол оруулсан Аргентины домогт тоглогч Лионель Месси даваа гарагт шигшээ багаасаа зодог тайлж буйгаа албан ёсоор зарлав.
Лионель Месси 20 жилийн өмнө Серби ба Монтенегрогийн эсрэг сэлгээнээс талбайд гарч анхны гоолоо оруулснаар Дэлхийн аваргын замналаа эхлүүлж байв. Тэрээр 2022 оны Дэлхийн аваргад долоон гоол оруулж багаа түрүүлүүлсэн бол, энэ зун болсон сүүлийн тэмцээндээ найман тоглолтод найман гоол оруулсан ч Аргентин шигшээ Испанид 1-0-ээр хожигдон үзүүрлэсэн юм. Месси нийт 21 гоол оруулсан амжилтаараа Францын Килиан Мбаппегийн (22) араас бичигдэж байна.
Түүний 2014 оны Босни ба Херцеговины эсрэг, 2018 оны Нигерийн эсрэг, 2022 оны Мексик болон Австралийн эсрэг оруулсан гоолууд Аргентины амжилтад онцгой нөлөө үзүүлсэн юм. Мөн 2022 оны шигшээ тоглолтод Францын хаалганд оруулсан хоёр гоол нь түүнийг дэлхийн хэмжээний аварга болгоход шийдвэрлэх үүрэг гүйцэтгэсэн билээ.
Түүний шигшээ багийн төлөөх сүүлийн гоол нь 2026 оны Дэлхийн аваргын шөвгийн 16-д Египетийн эсрэг хийсэн тоглолтын 83 дахь минутад бүртгэгдсэн юм. Энэхүү тэнцээний гоол нь Аргентиныг тэмцээнээс хасагдахаас аварч, улмаар Энцо Фернандесийн гоолоор хожил байгуулахад чухал түлхэц болсон. Ийнхүү Лионель Месси Дэлхийн аваргын 15 өөр өрсөлдөгчийн эсрэг гоол оруулсан гайхамшигтай амжилтаар олон улсын карьераа өндөрлүүллээ.
Дэлгэрэнгүйг эх сурвалжаас харах
↓Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
This is an updated version of an article originally published in June 2026
On Monday, Lionel Messi announced that he was retiring from the Argentina national team with immediate effect, bringing an end to one of the most incredible international careers.
His relationship with the World Cup was not entirely smooth, but he walks away having scored 21 tournament goals, a record only bettered by France’s Kylian Mbappe (22).
The first of those goals was 20 years ago, as a substitute in a 6-0 win against Serbia and Montenegro in Germany. He failed to score in the 2010 World Cup, before hitting four in 2014 in Brazil.
Four years later in Russia, he found the net just once from 18 shots. Then, in 2022, his seven goals, including two in the final against France, powered Argentina to World Cup glory.
Lionel Messi celebrates after winning the 2022 World Cup (Anne-Christine Poujoulat/Getty Images)
This summer, in what turned out to be his last international tournament, he scored eight goals in eight matches as Argentina fell one game short of retaining their trophy, losing 1-0 to Spain in the final.
With 21 to choose from, against 15 opponents, we asked some of our writers to pick their favourite World Cup goal scored by Messi.
2026 World Cup: Egypt, last 16
Was it his most awe-inspiring World Cup goal? Perhaps not, but when Messi equalized against Egypt in the 83rd minute of that memorable World Cup round-of-16 clash, my admiration for him was beyond description. Argentina were on the ropes with one foot out of the World Cup.
Messi had missed a penalty, but his assist to Cristian Romero in the 79th minute foretold an ending that only an icon like Messi could manufacture. The atmosphere inside Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium was a combination of electricity and anxiety. Are Argentina going home? Is this it for Messi? Instead, he orchestrated a comeback for the ages.
Lionel Messi’s team-mates throw him into the air after his heroics against Egypt (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Messi’s deflected service into the Egyptian penalty area caromed off multiple players before it fell at Gonzalo Montiel’s feet. Montiel saw Messi extend his hand as if to say, “Leave it for me.” Montiel tapped the goal into Messi’s path and the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner slammed the ball into the net with a sublime left-footed half-volley. Bedlam in Atlanta. Tears in stands.
Enzo Fernandez would seal the win seven minutes later. But it was Messi’s magic, and his last goal scored for Argentina, that kept him in the tournament when all seemed lost.
Felipe Cardenas
2014 World Cup: Bosnia and Herzegovina, group stage
It seems incredible now, but Messi went into the 2014 World Cup with major question marks hanging over his international record.
His tally of 37 goals in 83 senior appearances for Argentina would have been good going for a mere mortal, but with Messi having scored a frankly God-like 91 times for Barcelona in 2012, the Argentine media and public could have been forgiven for expecting more.
Not least as, at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Messi had failed to score in any of Argentina’s five matches (a fact compounded by his failure to score in a home Copa America the following year).
The many thousands of Argentines who made the trip to Brazil always had faith. Their anthem that summer, to the tune of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Bad Moon Rising, not only reminded any listening Brazilian of their defeat to Argentina at the 1990 World Cup and hammered home their view that Diego Maradona was better than Pele, but also proclaimed: “You are going to see Messi, we are going to take the cup.”
Still, when Messi walked out onto the pitch at the iconic Maracana stadium for Argentina’s first match of those finals against Bosnia and Herzegovina, he did so with a World Cup record of eight played, one scored.
So as he gained possession near the centre circle, exchanged passes with Gonzalo Higuain, dropped a shoulder to send two Bosnian defenders careening into one another, and slapped the ball left-footed into the bottom corner from 20 yards, Messi wasn’t just kickstarting Argentina’s campaign in Brazil — he was also finally establishing international football — and the World Cup in particular — as his stage.
James Maw
Lionel Messi celebrates after scoring against Bosnia and Herzegovina (Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)
2018 World Cup: Nigeria, group stage
A wide-eyed Diego Maradona was watching on from high. Jorge Sampaoli, Argentina’s coach, was self-combusting on the sideline. Argentina were dysfunctional and doomed. But for a couple of seconds, inside Messi’s bubble, all was beauty.
The pass, from Ever Banega, was gorgeous, but Messi still had an incredible amount to do. The ball was dropping over his shoulder. He was already running at full tilt. Nigeria defender Kenneth Omeruo looked to be in the perfect position, there to pounce on Messi’s touch if it was anything less than perfect.
It wasn’t. Messi welcomed the ball into his run, cushioning it with his thigh and then — sublimely, almost in slow motion — nudging it ahead with his left foot. By the time it touched the ground, Omeruo was irrelevant, grasping at fresh air.
The finish was emphatic, the perfect conclusion to a miniature masterpiece.
Jack Lang
2022 World Cup: Mexico, group stage
The World Cup in Qatar was supposed to be Lionel Messi’s last. When Argentina lost the opening game to Saudi Arabia in a smaller, less forgiving format, the stakes could not have been higher. I still remember Messi coming through the mixed zone in Lusail. He said they were muertos. Dead.
It made people think Messi was destined never to win the World Cup. The hysteria was palpable. When they played Mexico in their next game, an hour went by, and it was still 0-0. Lionel Scaloni tried everything. He began making the changes that would set Argentina on the way to victory, introducing Enzo Fernandez, then Julian Alvarez.
But before they could have any effect, Messi stepped up. He appeared on the edge of the box, and boom. Instead of leaping out of the dugout, Scaloni’s assistant Pablo Aimar slumped in his chair, head in his hands. When he revealed his face, the anguish and the relief were unforgettable. Messi, meanwhile, was running to the Argentina fans as if carried by a surge of electricity.
Lionel Messi and Julian Alvarez wheel away against Mexico (Markus Gilliar – GES Sportfoto/Getty Images)
As this list attests, he has arguably scored a couple of better goals in his World Cup career. But the weight and significance of this one made it very memorable, as it kept his World Cup dream alive. Messi and his team-mates were muertos no longer.
James Horncastle
2022 World Cup: Australia, round of 16
I’ll choose the other goal in Qatar that calmed the nation’s collective nerves.
There have been better ones off that magical left boot, of course, but as with the strike against Mexico, few have meant as much. Against Australia in the last 16, Argentina were again labouring when faced with an inferior opponent, digging in and determined to spoil their World Cup dreams.
Enter Messi, from that inside-right channel where he has spent so much of his storied career, firing a pass into Alexis Mac Allister before picking up Nicolas Otamendi’s lay-off in the box and instinctively finding the bottom corner to break the deadlock and put Argentina ahead.
Lionel Messi finds a way past a wall of Australia defenders (Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)
When you look up ‘Messi goal’ hundreds look just like it — the vision, the movement, the touch, the finish — but on the road to what would be his greatest achievement of all, it was as memorable as any.
Ben Burrows
2022 World Cup: France, final
His second goal against France isn’t the most beautiful goal Messi has ever scored at a World Cup.
In fact, it might be the ugliest: a scruffy rebound shot that didn’t even have the aesthetic value of hitting the back of the net. But there are scruffy rebounds and scruffy rebounds —ones that put your team ahead in extra time of the World Cup final carry rather more importance than any others.
Especially when a player’s talent has never been questioned, but his legacy would be defined by whether he won the biggest team prize, to go along with all the individual and club ones.
This wasn’t the winner, but it was his second in a winning World Cup final. Nobody could question him after that.
Nick Miller
2014 World Cup: Iran, group stage
In the summer of 2014, I briefly found myself as an Iran supporter. They’d been considered the rank outsiders going into the World Cup. I wrote an article that essentially said: look, they don’t have that much individual talent, but they’re well-organised, they probably won’t lose matches 5-0, and might cause Argentina more problems than everyone expects. To my surprise, this went semi-viral in Iran and one day I woke up with 10,000 extra followers on Twitter.
Therefore, I was really relying on Iran to make me not look stupid. And, thankfully, for 90 minutes, they put in a genuinely superb performance: good last-ditch defending, the odd counter-attack, everything you could wish for to create an unlikely underdog success story. A 0-0 draw against Argentina would have been one of the best results in their history.
And then… the thing is, Iran didn’t even do anything wrong. They didn’t give Messi that much space. He collected the ball in an inside-right position, dropped his shoulder — but was still in quite a tight spot — and curled the ball into the far corner from 25 yards. Iran did everything they possibly could to stop him, and yet he still found a way.
Lionel Messi curls in a shot from range against Iran (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
“We have a genius who is called Messi, and fortunately, he is Argentine,” said Argentina manager Alejandro Sabella afterward. “Iran made life hard for us, but with Messi, everything is possible.”
Michael Cox
2026 World Cup: Austria, group stage
Just totted up and I’ve realised I have been lucky enough to witness no fewer than 10 of his World Cup goals, from the first, as an 18-year-old substitute against Serbia and Montenegro in Gelsenkirchen in 2006, to the 2022 final in Qatar, to a double in Dallas a couple of days before he turned 39.
I just loved the goal that broke the record (before Mbappe later took it back). It was classic Messi: that typically adroit turn and pass in the build-up and then, after great work from Thiago Almada and Facundo Medina in the build-up, a wonderfully precise first-time shot to wrong-foot Austria goalkeeper Alexander Schlager.
Beyond that, there was the instinctive timing to make sure he arrived in the right place at precisely the right time. Perfect.
Oliver Kay
2014 World Cup: Nigeria, group stage
The other great World Cup goal he scored against Nigeria.
I’m sticking up for this one because it was the culmination of, perhaps, the finest group stage performance in the competition’s history — at least in terms of quality of goals scored by a single player.
In 2014, Messi began with that famously outrageous winner against Bosnia, arguably bettered it against Iran a few days later, with a splendid winner in stoppage time.
Then, to secure his country’s passage into the next round, he scored twice against Nigeria in Porto Alegre, the second of which was a gorgeous dipping free kick that buckled Vincent Enyeama’s knees and found the top corner.
A work of art.
Seb Stafford-Bloor
Lionel Messi strikes up his free kick against Nigeria (Pedro Ugarte/AFP via Getty Images)
