One pass to find him. One drop of the shoulder to leave them grasping at straws. And one touch to burst into space and bend the game to his will. It was all Argentina needed.
Lionel Messi began his 2026 World Cup with a thunderous strike against Algeria on Wednesday. Thirty-eight and still timeless.
Time has always bent to his will. Yet even as age catches up with the greatest of all time, old tales continue to resurface in new ways.
The date was June 16, 2006, at the World Cup in Germany, when an 18-year-old Messi became Argentina's youngest-ever World Cup scorer during a 6-0 demolition. Fast forward to June 16, 2026 – exactly 20 years later – and Messi became Argentina's oldest World Cup goalscorer against Algeria at the age of 38, eventually scoring all three of Albicelete’s goals in a 3-0 win.
Exactly two decades after scoring his first World Cup goal, he struck his 14th, 15th and 16th. A generational talent who sometimes seems to be a time traveller.
At 18, he was playing in his first World Cup, which also happened to be Zinedine Zidane's last. Against Algeria, in what is expected to be Messi's final World Cup, he found Zidane's 28-year-old son, Luca Zidane, standing between the posts.
That the ball does Messi's bidding has long been clear. The way he buys time, however, remains almost inexplicable.
Football philosophies stretching from Johan Cruyff and Marcelo Bielsa to Pep Guardiola combined in Argentina's number 10's opening goal. Rodrigo De Paul dropped between the centre-backs and found time for la pausa -- the Spanish concept of slowing the game down, embodied by Juan Román Riquelme and later popularised within Guardiola's footballing framework.
De Paul looked up and Messi had already read what was coming. When the pass arrived, it was neither left nor right but through a central corridor, bypassing five Algerian defenders. It was a vertical passing lane that split the entire defensive structure -- Bielsa's verticalidad in action -- finding Messi in acres of space, as though shaped by decades of footballing thought.
Messi, already positioned between the lines, collected the ball centrally and then the inevitable began to unfold.
His touch was neither hurried nor slow. The ball remained glued to his feet. The shoulder drop happened in an instant. Defenders scattered. In the chaos, Messi stole even more time.
Everything around him seemed to freeze. Then came the strike. Many will argue it could have been stopped. Luca Zidane even got a hand to it. What many fail to appreciate is the goalkeeper's perspective.
Messi drove towards the centre before subtly shifting both his body weight and the ball leftwards, suggesting a shot towards the far corner. With two defenders converging, he unleashed the strike at lightning speed. Yet it was another old trick. Instead of aiming where he appeared to be looking, he fired towards the opposite post, using the defenders as a screen and blocking the goalkeeper's sightline. The ball curled wickedly and found the net. Classic in its execution. Timeless in its effect.
From chaos, Messi steals time. It has always been his oldest trick. In essence, he bends the threads of time itself, having produced such moments throughout an extraordinary 20-year career.
His next two goals carried him past Gerd Müller and Ronaldo Nazário and level with Miroslav Klose as the joint-leading scorer in World Cup history with 16 goals.
In a career filled with hat-tricks, it was Messi's first on the World Cup stage. That it arrived in what is likely his final World Cup feels almost surreal.
For a player who has not played in a top-five European league for three years, has not regularly faced elite opposition for nearly two, and often appears to be strolling through his twilight years in Miami, this World Cup has once again revealed the timeless version of Messi.
The legs may have slowed slightly. The balance may no longer resemble its peak form. But the speed of thought remains untouched. That is what still separates him.
There are fewer touches now, a more minimalist version of Messi. Yet he has refined his game to such an extent that even his limitations seem to unlock new forms of brilliance.
Erling Haaland, who scored twice in Norway's opening win over Iraq, was among those left mesmerised.
"Messi is a madman," Haaland wrote.
That there is still room for surprise seems incredible, yet somehow inevitable.
Time eventually catches up with everyone. It still has a little catching up to do with Lionel Messi.
