Lionel Messi’s penalty record after he misses for Argentina vs Austria

Lionel Messi scored a hat-trick against Algeria to move level with German striker Miroslav Klose with a record 16 goals at World Cups.

After reeling Klose in just 76 minutes into World Cup 2026, the world was expecting the net to bulge when Argentina were awarded an early penalty kick via a VAR review against Austria in Dallas.

The Austrians felt the decision was harsh but they needn’t have worried. Messi aimed for Alexander Schlager’s bottom-left corner but missed the target. World Cup goal number 17 would have to wait – but not for long.

Play our free match predictor and win £1k

What is Lionel Messi’s penalty record?

Messi scored his record-breaking goal against Austria (Image credit: Getty Images)

Messi fired Argentina into the lead with a classic Messi finish after 38 minutes against Austria. He is now the World Cup’s outright record goalscorer.

Perhaps surprisingly, eight-time Ballon d’Or winner Messi, who is regarded as an icon and is ranked at no.1 in FourFourTwo's list of the greatest players of all time, has admitted that penalties are a flaw in his game that he’s long wanted to improve upon.

Kylian Mbappe is targeting Messi's record (Image credit: Getty Images)

“I would like to be more effective from the penalty spot,” he said in 2018. “But it's difficult to work on penalties. It's not the same taking them in training as it is in a game.

“You can have an idea in your head or something you have worked on, but it's more difficult than it seems. The goalkeeper has a lot to do with it, too. If they guess right, they save it. But it's obvious that I'd like to get better at taking penalties.”

The goalkeeper had no more to do with Messi’s missed penalty in Dallas than he did with the subsequent record-breaking goal, but the Argentina captain’s overall record from the spot is rather weaker than one might expect from a player of his stature.

His showdown with Schlager was the seventh World Cup penalty of his career and his third miss.

Messi has scored 116 penalties in his career for club and country, failing to find the net with a further 32 spot kicks. That’s a respectable enough success rate in the region of 78 percent, but respectable has never been enough for one of the game’s most beloved proponents and prolific scorers.

Messi scored four goals in his first game and a half at World Cup 2026 (Image credit: Getty Images)

Messi’s fourth goal of World Cup 2026 came not from the spot but from a first-time left-footed finish after arriving at the edge of the box to meet a cut-back. It was textbook Messi and there could be no finer way to claim the undisputed record.

The challenge for Messi now is to stretch his lead as much as possible. He will turn 39 this week and is unlikely to play in another World Cup. France captain Kylian Mbappe, more than a decade his junior, has scored 14 goals in 15 World Cup matches.

What do you think? Will Mbappe catch Messi and become the World Cup’s record scorer? Let us know in the comments…