Messi Reaches 20 World Cup Goals — and Explains What That Clenched Fist Really Meant
At 39, Messi scored against Cape Verde, reached 20 World Cup goals, and explained what that clenched-fist salute at Hard Rock Stadium was all about.
Thirty-nine years old on paper, but Messi's football never read that document. Against Cape Verde, Argentina's No. 10 scored and reached 20 World Cup goals — matching the personal best he had already set in Qatar.
It was not easy. The match ended 3-2 after 120 minutes of pure suffering. Cape Verde had gone through Spain and Uruguay without losing, and they showed exactly why. Messi opened the scoring and had a hand in Argentina's other two goals — and lasted every minute on the pitch as if age were nothing more than a bureaucratic detail.
After the final whistle, exhausted, he spoke to Olé and made no effort to hide his relief. "We knew it was going to be a game like this," Messi said, acknowledging the level of the opposition. On the clenched fist he pumped toward the crowd as he left Hard Rock Stadium, his answer was straightforward: "Fue una descarga para todos," Messi said.
Four games into this World Cup, he already has seven goals — and the ghost of Mbappé looms over the record books, though Messi seems indifferent to that. What he wants is the second title. In 203 appearances for the senior national team, he has accumulated 124 goals and remains the thread that holds everything together for Argentina.
Golmetria's model gives Argentina a 20.61% chance of lifting the trophy — higher than the market implies, which points to an implicit probability of 7.49%. A divergence that says a great deal about what the numbers see in this team.
Argentina are in the round of sixteen. Messi is on fire. And the question the football world will be asking over the coming weeks is simple: who is going to stop this?