Argentine magician Lionel Messi will set two new records in the South American Football Championship (Copa America 2024), currently being held in the United States.
The defending champions Argentina will meet their Colombian counterparts today, Sunday, local time (tomorrow morning, Monday, Abu Dhabi time) at Hard Rock Stadium in Florida, in the final match of the continental championship.
The Argentine national team aspires to win the title for the second time in a row and the 16th time in its history, in order to hold the record as the team with the most wins in the tournament, which it currently shares with the Uruguayan national team.
If Messi, 37, plays against Colombia, he will become the player with the most appearances in the finals in the history of the oldest and most prestigious tournament at the national team level in the world, according to the competition’s official website.
Messi is preparing to participate in his fifth Copa America final, after previously playing in the final matches of the 2007, 2015, 2016 and 2021 editions with the Argentine national team, where he currently shares the record with his retired compatriot Javier Mascherano.
Mascherano played in the 2004, 2007, 2015 and 2016 Copa America finals.
Messi may achieve another record if he scores 3 goals (a hat-trick) against Colombia, thus sharing the lead as the tournament’s all-time top scorer, currently held by Zizinho and Argentine Norberto Mendez with 17 goals.
Messi, who has scored 14 goals in his Copa America career so far, has set two records during his participation in the current edition of the tournament.
The first number is that he is the player who has played the most matches in the history of the competition, having played 38 matches so far in the tournament, 4 matches ahead of his closest pursuer.
The second record he achieved in the 2024 Copa America is related to being the player with the most goals scored in different versions of the tournament, after scoring a goal during Argentina’s 2-0 victory over Canada in the semi-finals of the competition.
This is the sixth edition of the Copa America in which Messi has managed to score, equaling the achievement of the late Brazilian star Zizinho, who also scored in six editions of the tournament.
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