Winn or lose Sunday, Messi will probably win Both the Golden Ball and the Golden Boot.

He currently shares first place in Goals scored with Mbappe at 8 goals each, but has 1 more assist than Mbappe.

Unless Oyarzabal scores 4 goals along with 4 assists on Sunday, nobody is surpassing him on those numbers

Haaland comes in 3rd place on goals with 7, but he has 0 assists in the tournament.


When it comes to the Golden Ball, besides the Goals and assists, Messi is also among the highest ranks in almost every offensive metric:

Attempts on Target: Tied with Mbappe in first place with 19.Haaland comes right behind them in third place with 12.

Attempts at Goal: Ranked first with 34. Mbappe is second with 33.

Attempts inside the penalty area: 16 (ranked 4th)

Attempts outside the penalty area: 18 (ranked first)

Crosses: Ranked second with 41.

Crossing accuracy: 41%. Tied for 118th place. Of the 117 players ranked above him, only 7 have Crossing attempts in the double digits. All between 10-18 attempts. The player that's tied with him at 118th place is the first guy on the list with at least 20 attempts with 22.

Messi has the same accuracy % with almost double the attempts.

If you go down the list of cross attempts, you have to go all the way to the 29th ranked player before you finally reach someone with a better accuracy percentage at 44%. He's got 18 attempts.




The man is 39 years old and still dominating athletes half his age.


And he's doing it without running.


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Some other Messi Factoids (career wise, not jus tthis World Cup):

quote:

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13

Argentina have scored two or more goals in 13 consecutive FIFA World Cup matches, the longest streak all-time (Uruguay is second with 11 straight from 1930-54).

12

Lionel Messi won 12 duels against England, his most in a World Cup match since 2014 (when he was 27); his most in a World Cup match without extra-time since 2010 (when he was 23).

11

Messi has scored or assisted in 11 straight FIFA World Cup games dating back to 2022, extending the longest such streak on record (last 60 years).

10

Messi has 10 FIFA World Cup knockout stage assists; six more than any other player on record (last 60 years). Pelé and Antoine Griezmann are the next highest with four.

9

Messi completed nine dribbles against England, the most of any player in a single game of the 2026 World Cup.

8 and 4

Messi is tied for most goals in this World Cup (eight with Kylian Mbappé) and is tied second in assists with four (one behind leader Michael Olise with five). In the last World Cup, Messi was one goal shy of sharing the lead for assists and goals. Thomas Müller (5 G, 3 A) in 2010 is the last player to lead or be tied for most goals and assists in a single World Cup.

8/13

Messi has reached the final in eight out of thirteen major tournaments he has been part of with Argentina (61.5%).

4

Messi is the fourth player with multiple assists in a FIFA World Cup semifinal over the last 60 years.

3

Should Messi feature in the World Cup final on Sunday, he will join Cafu as the only player to have appeared in three World Cup finals.

0.86

Messi generated 0.86 expected assists - more than the entire England team combined.

2

Enzo Fernández became the first Argentina player that Messi assisted twice in the World Cup. Previously, all of Messi's assists had been to ten different players.

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The repeat assist fact peaked my interest. He's Argentina's Drew Brees.



He doesn't care who he distributes the ball to, he just cares about you being ready to receive it and capitalizing on the opportunity he just gave you. Because he can see what nobody else - including the receiver - sees when he makes the pass. Don' t think just ball.