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Messi

|< < Prev #3260 (June 17, 2026)

Title text: Commentators agree that this will probably be the last World Cup in which Messi faces serious competition.

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Explanation

In the vein of 605: Extrapolating, this comic utilizes the incorrect application of extrapolation to humorous ends. Extrapolation is a form of estimation in which existing data points are used to estimate new data points beyond the range of the existing ones. In this case, Randall appears to have fit several data points regarding soccer superstar Lionel Messi's average goals per World Cup game to a curve using what appears to be polynomial or exponential extrapolation. It illustrates the danger of a small sample size, as the data point for "2026 (so far)" is based on only one game (the day before this comic, in his inaugural game of the 2026 World Cup, Messi scored three goals), and that data point is used to support extrapolation of a rapidly rising number of goals-per-game into the future. The data points for previous World Cups, which bounce around among various values but are all less than or equal to 1.0, are each based on many more games, and as such are likely to be much better estimates of how many goals-per-game Messi will score in the future.

As well as that, if this graph would be true, this would imply that in future games Messi would be scoring multiple goals per second, which would be impossible in real life^{[citation needed]}.

The title text says that this World Cup is the last one in which Messi will face serious competition. This is likely true, but humorously so, as this is almost certainly Messi's last World Cup period. However, the commentators may well have been consulting the chart, and instead be refering to how if this chart was to be true, in future games Messi would thereotically score hundreds of goals, which, assuming no-one else has the exponential rate of goals, would easily beat other players.

Transcript

[A graph is shown, with 1 axis having the numbers 1, 2, & 3 going up it, and the other having 24 unlabelled marks. There are 6 points on the graph itself, with them being labelled 2006 (.33), 2010 (0), 2014 (.57), 2018 (.25), 2022 (1), and 2026 (3), the latter having '(so far)' under it. There is a grey dotted curve going up in exponentially.]

[Title of graph:]Lionel Messi [new line] world cup points per game.

[Caption below text:]At this rate, by 2040 Lionel Messi will be scoring hundreds of goals per game.

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