Metropole · Sport

—The record. Lionel Messi has sixteen World Cup goals, level with Germany’s Miroslav Klose for the most in the tournament’s history.

—The margin. One more goal would make him the outright record holder, alone at the summit.

—The night. He drew level with a hat-trick against Algeria, on his two hundredth game for Argentina.

—The age. Messi is thirty-eight, turning thirty-nine this month, in what is almost certainly his last World Cup.