Lionel Messi began his sixth World Cup by picking Algeria apart with a hat-trick that stunned just about everyone watching.
Argentina won 3-0 in Kansas City, and the 38-year-old drew level with Miroslav Klose on 16 goals — the most in the competition's history.
It was Messi's first hat-trick at a World Cup, scored on his 200th appearance for Argentina and exactly 20 years to the day after he made his tournament debut. The watching world was floored.
His Inter Miami teammates, though, would not have been surprised. They had spent months watching him do almost exactly this in training, long before a global audience tuned in.
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Messi did not exactly limp into the tournament. In his final five appearances for Inter Miami before MLS paused for the World Cup , he racked up 12 goal involvements — five goals and seven assists.
The form did not come from nowhere. Behind closed doors, Inter Miami had been running an in-house competition that pushed Messi harder than most league games.
Coach Guillermo Hoyos, who took over in the spring, introduced what the squad called the 'Super Liga'. The players were split into small-sided teams, each with a captain who picked his own side, and the results were tracked on a whiteboard.
When the Super Liga wrapped up, the numbers were almost hard to believe. According to The Athletic , Messi's team scored more than 80 goals across the tournament — and no other side managed more than 30.
He had not stacked his team with the squad's other big names, either.
MLS may not carry the prestige of Europe's top leagues. But a player weeks away from his 39th birthday tearing through professional players at that rate is not something to wave away.
After the Algeria display, Brazil's Ronaldo hailed Messi as the greatest ever , and performances like these explain why.
By now, no one should be surprised by anything he does.
READ MORE: Why Lionel Messi is the only player in the World Cup with four gold patches on his jersey
