Day six belonged to the stars. The biggest stars. The brightest stars, on the greatest stage. Kylian Mbappé. Erling Haaland. Lionel Messi. Between them, seven goals combined. Wins for France, Norway, and Argentina. Fans losing their minds; opponents staring blankly into the middle distance, forlorn in their inevitable defeat.
Mbappé got the part started in the first game; his brace making him not only the French national team’s all-time leading goalscorer (passing former Blues heartthrob Olivier Giroud),
but leaving him just two shy of Miroslav Klose’s record of World Cup goals scored (16). The question isn’t whether Mbappé will pass the former Germany striker; it’s how much he will have by the time he’s done. Mbappé is just 27. This was his 15th career World Cup game and 14th career World Cup goal. He may be an old 27 in terms of career wear-and-tear, but he’s surely got at least one more tournament in him after this one.
Had Erling Haaland been playing in his 15th game, he might have been knocking about in the same goals-total stratosphere. Alas, the big man was playing in just his first, as Norway took on Iraq in the second game of the day. But Haaland wasted no time in getting his first World Cup goal, scoring at the half-hour mark, then adding a second before half-time after Iraq had equalized. Norway would add a couple more late in the game, their physicality and pure size proving a big mismatch for their opponents — probably not the first team who will struggle to deal with that.
As if inspired by a bit of “whatever you can do, I can do better”, Lionel Messi then put the two (relative) youngsters into their places, and scored not one, not two, but all three goals in Argentina’s romp over Algeria. The hat-trick has given Messi 16 career World Cup goals, equaling the aforementioned record. The next one will make him the competition’s all-time leading goalscorer, and that feels appropriate.
Enzo Fernández played the full 90, and played well. Valentín Barco was an unused substitute.
Relive the best of Day 6 (including Austria’s win over Jordan) here:
