Messi Delivers 1 Goal and 1 Assist vs Angola, Reaching Goals in 33 of the 51 Countries He Has Played In

Argentina faced Angola in an international friendly on the 14th, where Lionel Messi (Inter Miami / MLS) delivered a goal and an assist.
The match was held in Luanda, the Angolan capital, as part of the celebrations for the country’s 50th Independence anniversary.

Argentina struggled at times against Angola’s physicality, the poor pitch conditions, and temperatures that exceeded 30°C.
Still, in the 43rd minute, Lautaro Martínez (Inter / Italy) latched onto Messi’s through ball to open the scoring.

In the 82nd minute, the roles reversed—this time Lautaro set up Messi, who calmly added Argentina’s second to seal a 2–0 win in their final match of the year.

According to Argentine outlet Olé, Angola became the 51st country Messi has played in over the course of his career. Remarkably, he has now scored in 33 of those 51 nations, combining both club and national team matches.
The list of countries he has visited is shown below.

“Social Media Reactions”

• I kinda wonder how the Angolan players feel when their own home crowd cheers louder for the opponent’s goal lol.
• It’s Messi, man. No international fan cares who he’s playing against.
• He scored in Jamaica once and the whole stadium went crazy like he was one of their players.
• If you don’t live in the US or Spain, seeing a Messi goal live is like a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
• “seeing a Messi goal live if you don’t live in the US or Spain”
• Bro, Inter Miami vs Toronto FC — the crowd in Toronto lost their minds every time he touched the ball.
• When Miami came to Vancouver, scalpers absolutely lost their shit when it got announced Messi wasn’t playing.
• They were stuck with stupidly overpriced tickets lmao.
• That’s hilarious.
• Justice.
• Lmao the whole city melted down.
• It was like two months before Copa America and people were shocked Messi and Suárez didn’t want to play some random MLS game on an artificial pitch.
• To be fair though, the Whitecaps did smash Miami earlier this year when the whole squad actually showed up.
• Got any links? I wanna see the meltdown.

• The guys sitting next to me said the same thing — the internal struggle between
  “holy shit I wanna see a Messi goal”
  and
  “our keeper is having a MOTM masterclass shutting Messi down”
  was absolutely brutal.
• What killed me was the hundreds of people filming a Messi corner.
  The only time I turned my camera on was for that free kick because the angle was perfect, and if he’d scored it I would’ve hated myself for not recording.
• People love saying “he wasn’t liked in Paris,” but nah, same story there.
  The stadium woke up every single time he touched the ball.
• I brought a friend in Paris who said he didn’t care.
  Messi scored a free kick and the dude literally cried lmao.
• Lmao exactly.
• I watched Inter Miami vs Colorado Rapids last year.
  A whole visiting family, wearing the current Rapids players’ jerseys, all chanting “WE WANT MESSI!” 😂
• I’ve been to two Messi matches — one in Miami and one in Toronto (both against Toronto).
  He didn’t score in either.
  Fkn Sean Johnson ruined both nights.
• He got booed loud as hell in Vancouver, but at the same time you had people absolutely worshipping him. Total chaos.
• At least in the Leagues Cup Final there was some booing.
  Helps that he got shut down and Miami lost 3–0.
• I get the hype, but when I saw him against NYCFC it was honestly cringe as hell.
  I know I’m privileged to have seen him a few times, but that level of glazing was insane.
• To be fair, that’s how it is with GOATs.
  Kobe’s last season had every arena cheering him like crazy too.
• Still annoying af.
  Most of these people don’t even care about the match — or the sport.
  Just celeb chasers.

• “it’s Messi, no intl fan cares”
• → disagree.
• Flair checks out.
• Fair enough 😂
• Me when Messi scores: 😁🎉🥳🕺
  Me when Messi scores against Brazil: 😐🧍
• He had Brazilians cheering for him at the last World Cup.
  We’ll never see another Argentine player with that kind of influence in Brazil.
• As a Cuiabá fan, I’d honestly love to see him get the full Neymar treatment — popcorn thrown at him and all.
• “he scored in Jamaica and the whole stadium cheered like he was a Jamaican player.”
  For as much as Messi gets 50–70% of MLS away crowds cheering for him, it was nothing compared to when Inter Miami played Cavalier FC in Kingston earlier this year.
  High-ranking government officials came to meet him. People flew in from all over the Caribbean. Whole different level.
• It’s even crazier considering he’s at the twilight of his career.
  That said, back in his prime he played Trinidad and one of our players literally bowed to him.
• I’m still mad the one time I saw him live was against Nigeria at the 2018 WC.
  I was actually in pain when he scored.
  Need to catch him in an MLS match now that the hype’s calmed down so I can just enjoy it.
• Ha, we had a blast booing him every time he touched the ball.
  Not sure he would’ve been cheered in Vancouver though.
  People were still pissed about the no-show from the year before.
  If he’d shown up back then and scored, yeah, the place would’ve celebrated.
  Beating Miami over two legs has honestly been the highlight of our season.
• Vancouver’s in MLS so you technically get two chances a year with a bit of travel.
  Outside the US is a whole different story — you just have to get lucky.

• Lautaro’s connection with Messi is the best it’s ever been imo.
  Crazy to say it because a few years back I never felt this way, but he’s 100% the starter for me now.
  He offers a bit of everything.
  Julian is great too, but atm I’m going with Lautaro.
• Lautaro is an absolute gem for us at Inter.
  Relentless pressing, relentless work rate.
  He does need to score a bit more consistently across the whole season, but hearing he’s doing well for the NT makes me happy.
  Honestly, why not both Lautaro and Julian with Messi behind them?
• Aside from the World Cup injury, Lautaro has almost always been solid for the NT.
  TBH the best setup is probably:
  Start Julian → let his running and pressing wear teams down → bring on Lautaro to cook in the second half.
  (Exactly like we saw in the 2024 Copa América.)
  But I’m not against starting Lautaro and bringing Julian on later, or even starting both depending on the opponent.
• Lautaro presses just as much as Julián.
  Stop repeating the nonsense TyC Sports clowns say.
• Lautaro presses better than most forwards in the world imo.
  He just doesn’t reach Julian’s level — Julian might literally be the best pressing forward on the planet right now.

• 895 goals now for the GOAT.
  Surely he hits 900 this year.
• He’s got like 1–3 games left depending on knockout results.
  If Miami makes the final, it’s totally doable with his form.
  And because… well, it’s Messi.
• He only has 3 games max though.
• Depends on how far Inter goes.
  If they get past Cincinnati, they make the Eastern Conference Finals — that’s 2 guaranteed games.
  Win that and they get one more.
• But MLS is best-of-3 except the final, so Messi could have like 7 more matches.
• t’s single-leg from here on out.
• Conference semis, conference finals, and the MLS Cup are all single-game.
  Best-of-3 is only for the first round.
• 5 goals in the MLS semis and finals?
  Surely not.
• Potentially 3 games left — Conference SF, Conference Final, MLS Cup.
  That’s doable for braceman tbh.
• Only if they get through Cincinnati first.
  Miami has a horrendous record against them.
• 5 goals against Cincinnati? lmao.
• Aren’t the semifinals two legs?
• Nope.
  Our weird-ass playoffs only use best-of-3 in Round 1, then it’s single elimination the rest of the way.