It was a day of records in Football arena on March 23 (Thursday), with Harry Kane, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo making the headlines together. England's Harry Kane became the top goal-scorer of all-time for his country going past Wayne Rooney. England defeated Italy by 2-1 in an away fixture as they started their campaign in the Euro 2024 qualifying round on a perfect note. Kane registered his 54th goal for England going past Rooney who scored 53 times during his illustrious career. This was Kane's 81st international appearance as he led England to victory.
Meanwhile, Argentina celebrated the homecoming of World Champions at Buenos Aires as they beat Panama in an international friendly game. Lionel Messi featured in the game and smashed the 800th goal of his career. The match was played in front of a massive 83,000 fans and the atmosphere was electric. With Messi scoring in the dying minutes of the game and the night turned emotional too for the fans.
"I want to thank you all for the love and recognition that you have been receiving, not only after the World Cup but also for the Copa America. We said that we were going to give it all for this trophy," Messi said while addressing the crowd after the match. It was certainly a celebration of the World Cup win with every player of the World Cup winning squad getting a replica trophy to lift.
Coming back to Messi's record, he is only the second player after Cristiano Ronaldo to score a mammoth 800 goals in his career. Ronaldo had reached the milestone back in December 2021. When Messi is creating records, Ronaldo is unlikely to step back and the Portugal star, on Thursday, became the most capped player in men's international football. He played his 197th international game when he stepped out on the field for the game against Liechtenstein which Portugal won by 4-0. Ronaldo went past Kuwait's Bader Al-Mutawa who played 196 international matches in his career.
