Lionel Messi, the Argentine superstar who has already conquered football, is one goal away from adding yet another feather to his incredible career when Argentina face Austria in a Group J encounter in Dallas on Monday night.
Messi equalled Germany’s Miroslav Klose’s tally of 16 World Cup goals with a hattrick in Argentina’s 3-0 win over Algeria in their tournament opener on Tuesday.
It was also Messi’s 200th appearance for the Argentina senior side and his first hat-trick in World Cups.
Messi can surpass Klose if he nets one goal against Austria, who under the management of Ralf Rangnick, began their World Cup campaign with a convincing 3-1 win over Jordan.
However, for Austria, who are taking part in their first World Cup since 1998, facing the reigning world champions will be an uphill task.
This is Austria’s only eighth appearance in World Cups, even though their journey had begun in the second edition in 1934.
Austria finished fourth that year and in their second appearance two decades later in 1954, they earned the third spot – their best ever finish till now.
They haven’t been able to scale to those heights since, slipping down the ranks in European and world football while Argentina’s stars kept rising.
Argentina, who were the runners-up of the maiden edition in 1930, have won the trophy three times, including the previous 2022 edition in Qatar.
However, the two sides have never faced off against each other at the World Cup.
In fact, they have only ever faced off twice in a couple of friendlies in 1980 and 1990.
Argentina won the first tie 5-1, with Diego Maradona scoring a hat-trick, while the second match ended in a 1-1 draw.
It would be interesting to see whether, Messi, fresh off a hat-trick, can replicate what Maradona had done nearly 46 years ago when the two sides faced off in Dallas.
If Messi can pull it off, Argentina would become just the seventh team to score at least three goals in four consecutive World Cup matches.
If Austria are to pull off an upset win, they will have to find a way through the Argentine defence, which didn’t allow a single shot on target against Algeria.
A win for either side will guaranty a place in the knockout stage – a place Austria haven’t reached since 1982 and Argentina haven’t missed out from since 2002.
The odds are heavily in favour of the Albicelestes, however, with underdogs like Cape Verde and Curacao already scripting compelling upsets, Austrians will be hoping to write a fairytale of their own against Argentina.