Argentina captain Lionel Messi has been ranked seventh in the list of eight fastest players at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, ahead of Switzerland's 33-year-old midfielder Granit Xhaka.
Messi, 39, has been clocked at a top speed of 30.9 km/h, with six other players ahead of him, including France captain Kylian Mbappe, who tops the list at 37.6 km/hr, followed by Morocco full-back Achraf Hakimi and Norway marksman Erling Haaland (both 35.6 km/h).
Next in the list is Spain attacker Lamine Yamal (35.5 km/h), followed by Belgium striker Romelu Lukaku and England captain Harry Kane (both 31.4 km/h), with Messi and Xhaka (28.9 km/hr) rounding up the list.
The list was tweeted by World of Statistics, citing FIFA and Sofascore as their sources.
All eight players are into the quarter-finals of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with Hakimi's Morocco getting eliminated on Thursday (July 9) with a 2-0 defeat to Mbappe's France at Boston Stadium, Foxborough.
Spain's Yamal will be in top-eight action tonight (July 10) against Lukaku's Belgium at Los Angeles Stadium, Inglewood. Haaland and Kane go head-to-head on Saturday (July 11) when Norway play England in Miami, while Messi's Argentina lock horns with Xhaka's Switzerland on the same day in Kansas City.
Lionel Messi set an unwanted record early on during Argentina's 3-2 come-from-behind Round of 16 win over Egypt earlier this week when he saw his first-half penalty saved by custodian Mostafa Shobeir.
That made the 39-year-old the first player to miss two penalties in the same campaign - having also missed one against Austria in a 2-0 group-stage win - making him the player with the most penalties (8) as well as misses (4) in the competition.
However, the eight-time Ballon d'Or winner redeemed himself by setting up Cristian Romero before scoring the equaliser, becoming the World Cup's all-time assist leader, with nine.
He also scored in a record-extending ninth consecutive FIFA World Cup match and sixth in the knockouts, becoming the first player to reach 21 goals in the competition, with France's Kylian Mbappe (20) a close second.
Lionel Messi's 17th World Cup Man of the Match award is nearly double that of the next player on the list - Cristiano Ronaldo (9) - since FIFA introduced it in 2002.
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