Rich: Messi’s World Cup Hat Trick in KC Matches Any Mahomes Arrowhead Stadium Performance

Lionel Messi scored a hat trick in Kansas City, and Rich put it in the only terms that stadium understands: it belongs alongside anything Patrick Mahomes has ever done there.

The backdrop is the World Cup, which the United States is co-hosting and getting the lion's share of, and which Rich keeps rediscovering as one of the best events on earth. It's a Super Bowl for every nation playing that day, three or four times a day for nearly two weeks, and one by one the biggest stars keep showing up. Tuesday delivered three of them combining for seven goals.

Mbappe went first, scoring against Senegal for France, including an extra-time finisher Rich called a missile from way downtown. That gave Mbappe 14 World Cup goals, a French record.

Then came Erling Haaland, the 6-foot-5 Norwegian whom the group text compared to Gronk playing soccer. Haaland scored twice as Norway, in its first World Cup since 1998, won a match, making him the first Norwegian ever to brace at a World Cup. Rich likened spotting Haaland to the time he told his son to just watch the ice and Connor McDavid would announce himself. You don't need the name on the back.

The headliner was Messi in Kansas City, the World Cup home base for Argentina. His hat trick, the first of his career, tied Miroslav Klose for the most goals in World Cup history and moved him past Brazilian Ronaldo. Mahomes watched it with his wife Brittany as the place went nuts. In a building defined by what Mahomes and Travis Kelce have done on their dynastic run, Rich argued a Messi World Cup hat trick belongs right up there among its greatest moments.

He praised the spectacle around it too, from the scenes outside the New York and Los Angeles stadiums to Rob Stone getting high-fived by fans climbing into his lap, and the Fox booth meeting the moment, especially longtime favorite Ian Darke. For Rich, with the men's national team's win over Paraguay still fresh, Tuesday might have been the greatest day for soccer in this country's history.

He closed with the kind of bracket math that makes a fan's pulse jump. If the United States beats Australia on Friday and goes on to win its group, and England wins its group and its first knockout match, the two could meet in the round of 16 on July 4th in Philadelphia, a Revolutionary War rematch on the nation's 250th birthday in the very city where the first such knockout meeting once happened. Tickets, Rich noted, are already running $2,100. Holy Ben Franklin.