Following Lionel Messi’s historic masterclass against Austria at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, an iconic 14-year-old post by England and Manchester United legend Wayne Rooney has resurfaced online, sending football fans into an absolute frenzy.The year was 2012. A prime Lionel Messi had just scored an unbelievable five goals in a single UEFA Champions League match for Barcelona against Bayer Leverkusen. Watching the magic unfold, an awestruck Wayne Rooney took to his X (formerly Twitter) account to state the absolute obvious.“Messi is a joke. For me the best ever,” Rooney had posted on March 7, 2012.Fast forward 14 years later to Dallas, and those words have aged like the finest wine. On Monday night, the 38-year-old Argentine magician once again showed the world why Rooney’s decade-old prediction was spot on. Messi scored a sensational brace to lead defending champions Argentina to a comfortable 2-0 victory over Austria, officially sending his country into the Round of 32.More importantly, the twin strikes catapulted Messi to the apex of football history. He reached an unprecedented 18 career World Cup goals, officially shattering Germany’s Miroslav Klose’s long-standing men’s record of 16 goals to become the outright all-time top scorer in tournament history.As soon as the final whistle blew in Dallas, fans dug up Rooney’s old post from the archives. The tweet quickly went viral all over again, drawing millions of fresh likes, shares, and comments from fans echoing the same sentiment.For over a decade, Rooney has remained firm on his stance in the never-ending “Greatest of All Time” (GOAT) debate, routinely placing the Argentine ahead of his former Manchester United teammate Cristiano Ronaldo. With Messi still dominating the grandest stage of them all in 2026, football enthusiasts are loudly reminding the world that Rooney called it first.
