The 2026 FIFA World Cup has gotten off to a flying start on the pitch. With the expanded tournament, it's a bigger extravaganza than ever before, and that means the Cup is more action-packed than ever. With so much happening every day, ESPN India attempts to pick out the one magical moment that defined the day's action.
For Day 6, we pick Lionel Messi reminding everyone that he's still very much the man.
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He got the ball in the centre circle and scurried forward. It's the way he moves, the way he's always moved: scurrying, little legs whirling about, feet splayed, hips shaking wildly, like a spider running across a hot stove.
After taking a few steps forward, he poked it wide to a teammate and slowed down for just a moment. When he did that, the opposition midfielder who had been running alongside, overshot him, keeping pace with the ball rather than the man. It was all the space he needed.
Jogging into the D, drifting slightly wide to widen that gap to his would-be marker, he looked to his left and saw the ball come toward him. With it going slightly behind him, he stretched out that left foot, and the ball stopped dead, as it almost always does. Another touch to take the suddenly-aware-of-him defenders rushing in out of the equation, and he let fly, curling a low, hard shot past the diving goalkeeper and right into the bottom corner.
Read that description, close your eyes, and think about it. You know who it is, because you've seen it happen so many times. If you've watched enough football over the past two decades, the memory of it is probably burned into your subconscious: this little man in the D, the ball coming in, him curling it low to the keeper's right with his left foot, from just inside or just outside that D. You remember some of them -- that one at the Bernabeu where he lifted his shirt to the Real Madrid fans in 2017; the one against Bosnia and Herzegovina in their World Cup opener in 2014; that other one against Real Zaragoza in 2007 or Basel in 2008 or Mallorca in 2010 or Osasuna in 2012 or Sevilla in 2016 -- and you misremember others. You've seen it too often. They've all blurred into one reel of non-stop net bursting motion.
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- ESPN India (@ESPNIndia) June 17, 2026
So, in his opening game of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Lionel Messi decided to do it all over again.
Nabil Bentaleb stood no chance with his pause mid-run, Luca Zidane even less with his shot at goal. He'd already scored two past Algeria and in the 76th minute he made it three, for him and for Argentina, with a goal from the past. 'Take your pick', he seemed to say, 'which goal does this remind you of?'
It was the moment that made you pause, made you think. There was no goalkeeping error here, no element of luck, nothing accidental about it. But he simply had no right to do this. He wasn't supposed to. 39 in a week, he was out to pasture in the MLS, chillin' and kicking up his heels, that he-hasn't-won-the-World-Cup millstone around his neck broken clean four years ago. What else was there to do?
Well, mark his 200th international match and sixth World Cup tournament by scoring a hat trick (his first at a World Cup) and going level with Miroslav Klose atop the World Cup scoring charts (16 each) in the opener, apparently. Buzz about incessantly, track back and put in tackles, dictate the tempo from wherever he stood. Just casually remind everyone that he's still at it, doing what he wants, when he wants. Score that same goal, from that same position, with that same absurd, casual ease.
As Erling Haaland (he who scored a brace on World Cup debut a few hours before), put it on Snapchat - "Messi is a madman". Exactly 20 years on from his World Cup debut (when he scored against Serbia and Montenegro), Lionel Messi took this moment to remind us that the most repeated thought in modern football is still very much valid... It's 2026, and it's okay for us all to think: 'Oh, stop it, Leo.'