World Cup news: Erling Haaland has perfect reaction to Lionel Messi’s hat-trick

Lionel Messi remains the gift that keeps on giving even at the age of 38, lighting up Argentina’s first game of the FIFA World Cup against Algeria with a hat-trick, scoring all three of his team’s goals. Messi is now the joint-highest goalscorer in World Cups and looks poised to lead another title charge for Argentina.

And well, he has found praise from fellow prodigal scorer Erling Haaland, who posted a fitting response to Messi’s performance on Instagram.

"Messi is a madman "

Erling Haaland was speechless after Lionel Messi's hat-trick against Algeria

(via @ErlingHaaland/ Snapchat) https://t.co/wLbNvCz5Dk pic.twitter.com/Ic3MuJZQlo

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) June 17, 2026

“Messi is a madman ,” he wrote over a picture of himself wearing a Norway shirt.

While Haaland may have seemingly branded Messi the king, the Argentine will be more concerned about his team winning the first game, something that did not happen in Qatar four years ago, when they lost 2-1 to Saudi Arabia. This time around, Messi was determined to lead his team to a winning start, having a goal disallowed in the opening minutes before launching a ferocious strike from outside the box in the 17th minute to actually open the scoring.

He followed it up with two goals in the second half, scoring his first World Cup hattrick and immediately sending a message to the rest of the teams at the tournament. And well, Erling Haaland has also had a similarly fruitful time for Norway of late.

He initially led his nation to their first World Cup in 39 years after scoring an astonishing 16 goals in just eight qualifying games. Haaland then scored twice in Norway’s opening day 4-1 victory over Iraq.

Of course, this was also the easiest of the three games for Norway, at least on paper. Group I also boasts of both Senegal and the last World Cup’s finalists, France, which means they are likely to vie with Sadio Mane and co. for a place in the knockouts.

Argentina, on the other hand, will be optimistic about their chances, with games against Jordan and Austria standing between them and the knockouts.

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