Carli Lloyd, Lionel Messi scored three times and Argentina opened the World Cup with a 3-0 win over Algeria. The hat trick tied the men’s World Cup goals record and gave him 16 goals in six World Cup appearances.
Messi and Rodrigo De Paul
Messi opened the scoring in the opening minutes after a feed from Rodrigo De Paul. He added a second on an opportunistic rebound early in the second half, then finished the hat trick moments before coming off to a standing ovation from 69,045 fans.
Argentina and Miroslav Klose
The record he matched belongs to Germany’s Miroslav Klose. Messi’s three-goal night also made him the second player to score in five editions of the men’s tournament and stretched his run to five straight World Cup games with a goal.
The timing sharpened the scale of the result. Messi’s hat trick came 20 years to the day after his World Cup debut against Serbia and Montenegro, and it was his first World Cup hat trick, even though he had already scored 61st of his career and 11th while playing in his national team colors.
Lionel Scaloni and Algeria
Messi had entered the tournament dealing with a minor hamstring injury with Inter Miami, and he played only 20 minutes in a tuneup last week against Iceland before the opener. He still delivered the kind of game that turns an early tournament lead into an immediate benchmark.
Afterward, he said, "My tears after the first goal? I've had some tough days. It wasn't related to football. And those feelings were because of that," and added, "I thank my teammates, the coaching staff and the delegation for helping me." Lionel Scaloni summed it up bluntly: "At a loss for words about Leo. What can I say? He's incredible."
Messi also said, "This is my sixth World Cup, and I still feel like I'm in good shape," and, "It's important to start the tournament with a victory in the first game, as that's never easy in a World Cup." With France and Norway both producing two-goal games on the same Tuesday, the standard Messi set in Argentina’s opener was the one that mattered most.
