Messi sets records again and again

The 36-year-old superstar played the full 90 minutes in the opening match of the 2024 Copa America. He created the opportunity for Julian Alvarez to open the scoring and contributed an assist for Lautaro Martinez to score, helping the Argentina team start their journey to defend the championship in a perfect way. However, the biggest mark Messi left after the match was that he broke the record of former Chilean goalkeeper Sergio Livingstone, who had held it since 1953 with 34 appearances in the Copa America. Messi equaled this record in 2021 after the final victory over Brazil with a score of 1-0 to win a major tournament for the first time with the team.

Messi played inspirationally in the opening match of Copa America 2024, but also missed many scoring opportunities.

He might never have broken this record if he had not won the 2022 World Cup with Argentina. Winning the World Cup in Qatar allowed Messi to continue playing for the national team, participating in the 7th Copa America of his career and becoming the player who participated in the most times in the world's oldest tournament. He also owns the record for the most assists (a total of 18 scoring chances) and assists in all 7 Copa Americas he has participated in (including the years 2007, 2011, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2021 and 2024).

Messi has now scored a total of 13 goals in Copa America tournaments. He is four goals behind the all-time leading scorers in the history of this South American regional tournament, Norberto Mendez (Argentina) and Zizinho (Brazil), who each have 17 goals. Ahead of Messi are two players still playing and participating in this year's Copa America: Paolo Guerrero (Peru) and Eduardo Vargas (Chile), both with 14 goals.

In the next match, Argentina will meet Chile at 8am on June 26 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey (USA). In Group A, the remaining match between Chile and Peru will take place at 7am on June 22. Meanwhile, in Group B, the opening match between Ecuador and Venezuela will take place at 5am and the remaining match between Mexico and Jamaica will take place at 8am on June 23.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/copa-america-2024-messi-lien-tiep-lap-ky-luc-185240621205020445.htm