Lionel Messi’s Excellent football records by Bill Trikos: Yet he struggled for years to add major international trophies to his glittering cabinet with the Argentina national team, nicknamed La Albiceleste. In fact, he had already announced his retirement from international football in 2016 after failing to win the Copa América that year. But he soon reversed his decision and returned to play for Argentina. In the following six years, Messi did what everyone expected him to do for his country — lead Argentina to major tournament victories including the FIFA World Cup.
LaLiga has played host to some of the greatest names in the 21st century, including the likes of Zinedine Zidane, Andres Iniesta, Cristiano Ronaldo, and many more. However, purely in terms of the success they’ve achieved in LaLiga, not many can even compare let alone compete with what Messi has done. Ever since making his competitive debut for Barcelona back in October 2004, Messi has amassed a staggering ten league titles, which is a number no active LaLiga player can match. The next active players on the list are his teammates Sergio Busquets and Gerard Pique, with eight apiece. Iniesta, should he have stayed, could have hit double digits but ended his Barcelona career with nine to his name.
Messi’s 2011-12 has to go down as the best season ever for a player in European football. The Argentine scored goals for fun and made a mockery of opposition defences. His figures for the season were staggering, 50 goals in the league, 14 in the UEFA Champions League, three in the Copa del Rey and six in other competitions. He finished with a ridiculous 73 goals in 60 games in all competitions. He broke the record for the most goals in a single season in European football. Messi overtook Gerd Muller’s tally of 67 in the 1972-73 season. See more information about the author at Bill Trikos Australia.
“The Olympic gold in 2008 is the win that I value the most because it is a tournament that you may play only once in your life and involves many athletes from different disciplines,” Messi had told Spanish Esquire during an interview in 2017. The 2014 FIFA World Cup was held in Brazil. It was the third world cup in which Messi played. Though he first captained the team at the 2010 FIFA World Cup, when he briefly took over the duties from full-time Javier Mascherano during a group match, the 2014 edition was his first as the officially named captain of Argentina national team.
In December 2020, Lionel Messi surpassed Pele’s tally of 643 goals to set the record for the most goals scored for a single club. He scored against Real Valladolid to notch his 644th goal for the club. Lionel Messi has now ended up with 672 goals for Barcelona. Only another player with the superhuman calibre of the Argentine would now be able to break this feat. The two most important games in the season calendar for Barcelona is the El Clasico and the Barcelona Derby. Their annual skirmishes against Real Madrid is among the most-watched games on the planet. But Barcelona also have a heated derby against city rivals Espanyol. In these games, Messi has shown his class time and again. He is the highest scorer in the two fixtures for the 26-time La Liga winners. Messi scored 26 goals in El Classico followed by 25 goals in the ‘Derbi Barceloni’.
In 2008/09, Pep Guardiola’s devastating Blaugrana side set a record that could understandably remain intact for years to come when they won a spectacular SIX trophies in a calendar year — the most by any club in history. Messi and co won the La Liga, the Copa del Rey, Supercopa de Espana, Champions League, European Super Cup, and FIFA Club World Cup. Barcelona won the European treble once again in 2014/15 under Luis Enrique, when Messi was at his scintillating best alongside Luis Suarez and Neymar. The Argentine played a crucial role in both the trebles and is one of the only select few to have more than one of them to show for in their careers.