Franco Mastantuono Breaks Messi's Hat-Trick Record in Venice

Franco Mastantuono didn’t just light up Venice. He rewrote a page of Argentine football history – and nudged Lionel Messi out of a record he had owned for almost two decades.

The Fiorentina winger, on loan from Real Madrid, became the youngest Argentine ever to score a hat-trick in one of Europe’s top five leagues, eclipsing Messi’s mark from 2007. Mastantuono was 19 years and 28 days old on Friday night, making him 231 days younger than Messi was when he hit his first treble.

Messi did his in a Clasico against Real Madrid. Mastantuono did his with Florence already under pressure and a season already creaking.

A Record Night in Venice

Fiorentina trailed 1-0 at the break at Venezia, staring at a fourth straight league defeat and another long, angry week in Tuscany. The response was ruthless.

Mastantuono needed just 98 seconds after the restart to flip the game on its head. Two quick, clinical finishes from the right winger turned 0-1 into 2-1 and drained the air from the home crowd. The raw numbers will say “brace in under two minutes.” The reality was a teenager grabbing a broken team and dragging it forward.

The pressure didn’t ease. Fiorentina kept pushing, and Mastantuono kept running at defenders who suddenly looked half a step slower. By the 84th minute, the stage belonged to him completely.

His third goal finally killed off the contest. Fiorentina stretched their lead to 4-1, and even a late reply from Venezia could not spoil the night. The 4-2 victory delivered Fiorentina’s first win of the new Serie A season – and, crucially, their first points.

A crisis didn’t disappear, but it certainly changed shape.

Vanoli Back, and Vindicated

Plenty of the spotlight falls naturally on Mastantuono, and rightly so. But this turnaround also carried the fingerprints of Paolo Vanoli.

Vanoli had kept Fiorentina in the division last season, only to be replaced in the summer by 2006 World Cup winner Fabio Grosso. The gamble backfired instantly. Grosso’s reign lasted just three games: three defeats, a goal difference of 1:9, and a team that looked lost.

The club moved quickly. Grosso was dismissed, Vanoli was brought back to the dugout in Florence this past week, and his return already has a statement win attached to it. A comeback away from home, four goals scored, a teenage star unleashed – this is the sort of performance that can reset a dressing room.

Real Madrid’s €45m Question

Behind all of this sits a very modern subplot: what happens next with Franco Mastantuono?

Real Madrid paid €45 million to sign him from River Plate in 2025, a fee that underlined just how highly they rated him. But his time in Madrid so far has been more promise than impact. Across 35 appearances in all competitions, he averaged just 42 minutes per game, scoring three goals and adding one assist. Glimpses, not yet a breakthrough.

That’s why this loan to Fiorentina exists. A season to grow, to play, to make mistakes and fix them. On Friday night in Venice, he did something else instead: he exploded.

Three goals in one game in Florence’s colours, a long-standing Messi record taken down, and a fanbase suddenly daring to believe that this season might not be defined by the nightmare of August and early September.

For now, Mastantuono remains in Italy until next summer. Then comes the decision in Madrid: is this the moment they bring back a different player to the one who left, or the start of a tug-of-war over a star who has just announced himself to Serie A?