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| He's only 27. (Reuters/Gustau Nacarino) |
Barcelona’s Lionel Messi is the best
soccer player in the world right now, maybe the best of all time. Every year
the Argentine adds another record or trophy to his name. Here are some of the
records he has demolished.
Most goals scored in
Spanish history
On Saturday, Messi broke the
record for all-time top goalscorer in La Liga: 253 goals in 289 matches.
With that, Messi finally overtook the record set by Athletic Bilbao legend Telmo
Zarra back in 1955.
Incredibly, none of the great strikers who played in Spain
over the years could beat the record set by the Basque—and then it was
beaten by Messi, who isn’t even a striker.
Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi’s
great rival—the Foreman to his Ali—has scored 197 so far but only joined La
Liga in 2009. Messi started playing for the Barca first team in 2004.
The majority have been scored
with Messi’s left foot and inside the penalty box. Zarra scored his
251 goals in 15 years at Athletic Bilbao. Messi broke it in 10 years. He
scored his first La Liga goal at the age of 17.
It goes without saying that
Messi is the all-time top goalscorer for Barcelona as well, with 368 goals in all
competitions.
Most goals scored in Europe
Messi jointly holds this record
with Raúl but seems likely to claim it all for himself soon enough. They
both have 71 goals in the Champion’s League. Raul, a Real Madrid legend who is
currently playing for the New York Cosmos, scored his last European goal in
2011.
Ronaldo is just
behind the two of them, with 70 goals, meaning that by the end of the
season, either Messi or Ronaldo could smash the record to pieces. But the ratio
of goals to games in European play for these three greats tells another story:
- Raul: 71 in 142 games = 50%
- Messi: 71 in 90 games = 79%
- Ronaldo: 70 in 107 games = 65%
Messi is also the all-time scorer of
hat-tricks in Europe, with four in total.
Most goals scored in
a season
The Argentine scored 73 goals in a single season in all competitions in 2011.
That includes an incredible year in the league.
In 1953, Zarra scored 38 goals
in the league—and that record stood until Ronaldo put 40 goals away in 2010 and
then Messi smashed that the following year, with an insane 50 goals. That means
Messi scored around a fifth of his entire goal tally in La Liga in one year.
The following year, he set
another record—for the longest scoring run ever in La Liga. Messi hit the back
of the net in 21 consecutive matches, scoring 33 goals.
Most “best player in the world” awards
Not only has Messi been voted
the best player in the world four times, he won them four years in a row—from
2009 to 2012. He also the youngest-ever multiple winner, as he was aged 24
years, 6 months and 17 days at the time.
And
with all these records broken, keep in mind that Messi is only 27 years old.
His current coach thinks he will set “unreachable”
records.
Source: http://qz.com
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