While this FIFA World Cup boasts a generation of attacking talent that may be without equal — Erling Haaland, Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Lamine Yamal, Vinicius Junior, Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele, and Michael Olise among the headline names — it is Lionel Messi, the 38-year-old Argentine legend, who stands above them all as the tournament's top scorer and its most compelling individual force.

Messi opened the competition with a hat-trick in his side's first match, then broke Miroslav Klose's all-time World Cup scoring record with a brace against Austria in the second game. Those strikes have placed him at the top of the Golden Boot standings, and Argentina are marching toward what could be a second consecutive World Cup title.

The GOAT debate can wait

Modern football culture has become consumed by rankings. The Ballon d'Or, once a footnote in the sporting calendar, now commands months of breathless debate. The internet age has turned every comparison into a referendum, every achievement into a leaderboard entry.

Yet even those who resist that impulse must stop and take stock of what Messi is producing — and at what age. He turns 39 on Wednesday. Most players of his era have long since moved on to television studios, coaching roles, or ceremonial appearances at tournament draws. Messi is leading Argentina through a World Cup.

Diego Maradona secured his place among football's immortals by carrying a largely functional Argentina side to the 1986 World Cup. Messi already matched that feat in 2022. He now stands on the verge of doing it twice — a achievement that would reframe every debate about the greatest player the game has ever seen.

Beyond the Ronaldo comparison

For years, the discourse around Messi was inseparable from comparisons to Cristiano Ronaldo. Those comparisons have largely faded — not as a slight against Ronaldo, who is two and a half years older and at a stage where that gap is significant, but because measuring Messi against any single rival has always been reductive. The more rewarding question is simply this: how is he still doing it?

The greatest illusion Messi has ever crafted is making all of this feel inevitable. A hat-trick in the opener? Of course. A record-breaking brace in the next game? Naturally. The sheer accumulation of those moments across a career spanning two decades has trained us to expect the extraordinary from him — and he keeps delivering.

Savour every moment

Messi will one day become the player that grandchildren discuss the way older generations speak of Pelé: a mythologised figure from a time before living memory. There will be decades ahead for rankings, retrospectives, and debates about where precisely he belongs on football's all-time podium.

But the chance to watch him perform at this level, on this stage, may amount to only a few more weeks. That window is worth more than any argument about his legacy. Drink it in while it lasts.