‘I swear he doesn’t care.’ Messi’s long-time team-mate on records being broken
4 min readUpdated: Jun 17, 2026 02:24 PM IST With his opening match hat-trick against Algeria in Argentina’s Group J encounter at Kansas City Stadium on Wednesday, World Cup winner Lionel Messi not only levelled with German Miroslav Klose for most goals in FIFA World Cup history with 16 goals but also became the oldest player to score a World Cup hat-trick. The 38-year-old Argentine star’s hat-trick came exactly 20 years after his FIFA World Cup debut when he came on as a substitute in a group match against Serbia and Montenegro in the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Messi’s team-mate Rodrigo De Paul, who also assisted Messi in his first goal of the match, shared how Messi does not care for records and how Messi is enjoying his football without the pressure at present. “I swear he doesn’t care. Sometimes we’ll be in a room drinking mate and we’ll tell him ‘hey man, you’re just one away or two away’ or whatever. And I swear he has no idea. I don’t know how that …









