Messi marks 1,000th career game with 1st World Cup knockout goal

Lionel Messi is inevitable.

Playing in his 1,000th professional match, Argentina's talisman opened the scoring in Saturday's last-16 encounter against Australia, breaking the deadlock with a quintessential side-footed finish in the 35th minute.

Argentina went on to claim a 2-1 win, and will play the Netherlands in the quarterfinals.

Messi, who admitted ahead of the tournament that this would be his final World Cup, has now scored 789 career goals for club and country.

It was his ninth career World Cup goal and, incredibly, his first in the knockout stages of the quadrennial event.

Messi, 35, now has more goals at the World Cup than both Diego Maradona and Cristiano Ronaldo (eight). With one more tally in Qatar, he'll equal Gabriel Batistuta as his country's top scorer in World Cup history.