Only in your mind Lionel Messi conquered every mountain football has to offer, the Argentine maestro invented a new peak. By scoring a clinical 29th-minute strike against a resilient Cape Verde on Saturday, Messi not only blazed Argentina’s path to the Round of 16 as he rewrote the fabric of international football history, becoming the first player to score seven goals in two different editions of FIFA World Cup.The talismanic forward, who famously scored seven goals during Argentina’s fairytale championship run at Qatar 2022, replicated the exact goals scored in the 2026 edition. His sublime finish under the Miami lights took his current tournament tally to seven, pulling him one ahead of France’s Kylian Mbappé in a fierce race for the Golden Boot and extending his World Cup career total to 20 goals.No other football player in the history of the beautiful game, neither Pelé, Diego Maradona, nor modern icons has managed such a surprising consistency in scoring in multiple World Cup tournaments. While most players consider a seven-goal return in a world cup a lifetime achievement, Messi has made the feat a routine expectation.His performance on Saturday also extended his record-breaking World Cup scoring streak to eight consecutive games, displaying an unparalleled longevity that completely defies his age. Dropping deep to orchestrate the play before making a perfectly timed, ghosting run into the box, Messi controlled Lisandro Martínez’s high pass with trademark elegance before slotting it past Cape Verde’s veteran keeper Vozinha.For more than two decades, Messi has traded in miracles, but this latest milestone cements his status as a statistical masterpiece all his own. As the defending champions march to Atlanta to face Egypt on Tuesday, the football world is watching in awe. Argentina may be grinding out results with more energy, but with their captain operating at a historic level of lethality, La Albiceleste are looking good.