Lionel Messi scores hat-trick, goes past 100 goals Argentina

Argentina hosted Curacao on Tuesday and demolished the tiny nation defeating them 7-0 with Lionel Messi (102) scoring a hat-trick and surpassing the 100-goal barrier while playing with his nation.

Messi only needed 37 minutes to score his three Tuesday goals, and in fact, he completed the feat in just a span of 17 minutes from the 20th through the 37th of the first half to do so.

Fellow Argentines Nicolas Gonzalez, Enzo Fernandez, former PSG player Di Maria, and Gonzalo Montiel completed the 7-0 demolition. Here is a tidy recap of what went on at the Estadio Unico Madre de Ciudades in Santiago del Estero.

The last time we wrote about Messi, we did in telling you how he had surpassed another ridiculous milestone: scoring 800th goals at both club and country levels. Well, it turns out Messi doesn't seem to know how to play football without breaking records.

The Paris Saint-Germain genius was an unstoppable force for a Curacao team made up of subpar-level players. Perhaps this is what Messi should do going forward instead of trying to achieve greater feats such as lifting another Champions League, as he truly felt comfortable dancing around these lads and breaking marks.

Lionel Messi 102 goals with Argentina only trail Cristiano Ronaldo (122) and Ali Daei (109)

Everything made sense, though, considering this was the second leg of the self-congratulatory mini-tour staged by the Argentine Football Federation in order to celebrate the triumph of Lionel Scaloni's men in the 2022 World Cup.

Argentina won't play any more games until next June when they will face a couple of teams in two more friendlies before embarking on their CONMEBOL qualifying run for the 2026 World Cup come September.

Messi will enter those two friendlies having scored 102 goals with Argentina, trailing only two other players on the list of most official-game goals scored for their national teams: Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal, 122) and Ali Daei (Iran, 109).