KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Lionel Messi delivered his first World Cup hat trick while matching Miroslav Klose’s career tournament scoring record Tuesday night, giving thousands of Argentina fans packed inside of Arrowhead Stadium for a match against Algeria a moment they will never forget.Messi scored his first goal in the opening minutes off a nifty feed from Inter Miami teammate Rodrigo De Paul, the second early in the second half, and the third moments before subbing out to a standing ovation.The goals came 20 years to the day that Messi made his World Cup debut for Argentina in a match against Serbia and Montenegro — he scored in that one, too — and made him only the second player to score in five editions of the tournament.Messi has 16 goals in his six World Cup appearances, and it seems inevitable that Klose’s record will fall in the coming weeks. The hat trick was the 61st of his career and his 11th while playing with the national team.
It was the fifth straight World Cup game in which Messi has scored.The hat trick also upstaged two of soccer’s other big stars — Kylian Mbappé of France and Erling Haaland of Norway — who had big games Tuesday. Mbappé scored twice in France’s 3-1 win over Senegal earlier in the day and is tied for fourth on the World Cup scoring list with 14, while Haaland scored twice for Norway in its 4-1 win over Iraq.
