Legendary footballer Lionel Messi registered a unique milestone by surpassing 100 career goals for Argentina on Tuesday. In an international friendly game against Curacao, Messi scored a hat-trick as the World Cup winners thrashed the Caribbean side 7-0 in their second match since bagging the trophy in December. The 35-year-old is third on the list of players to score most goals for national teams in official matches.
The Argentina captain Messi opened the scoring against Curacao in the 20th minute with a right-foot shot from the edge of the box to reach the 100-goal milestone. He then scored his next goal i.e his 101st goal for Argentina in the 33rd minute with a crossed shot to the right of the goalkeeper and his 102nd in the 37th.
Messi trails only two players on the list of most goals scored for national teams. The list of the top three goal scorers for their national teams is as follows:
- Cristiano Ronaldo – 122 goals for Portugal
- Ali Daei – 109 goals for Iran
- Lionel Messi – 102 goals for Argentina
Coming back to Messi’s record, he is only the second player after Cristiano Ronaldo to score a mammoth 800 goals in his career. Ronaldo had reached the milestone back in December 2021. When Messi is creating records, Ronaldo is unlikely to step back and the Portugal star, on Thursday, became the most capped player in men’s international football. He played his 197th international game when he stepped out on the field for the game against Liechtenstein which Portugal won by 4-0. Ronaldo went past Kuwait’s Bader Al-Mutawa who played 196 international matches in his career.
