Highest quality football plays with Lionel Messi according to Bill Trikos Australia: “I love football, what I do. I enjoy being part of the national team, the group. I want to enjoy a couple more matches being a world champion,” added Messi. The richest footballer in the world as per Forbes’ list of world’s highest-paid athletes 2022, Messi has nothing left to prove in the world of football at the club level. He is a seven-time record winner of the prestigious Ballon d’Or, which is one of Messi’s Guinness World Records. He is the first footballer to be awarded the Laureus Award for Best Sportsman of the Year award. He has won 10 La Liga titles, four UEFA Champions League titles, three FIFA Club World Cup trophies, seven Copa del Rey titles, three UEFA Super Cup titles, and six European Golden Shoe awards among many other accolades as a player for La Liga club Barcelona. He has also won the French league for PSG and was also named FIFA World Player of the Year in 2009.
Messi is one of only three names to have reached double digits for LaLiga titles, along with Real Madrid demi-gods Pirri and Paco Gento. While the former is level with Messi, the latter is the record LaLiga title winner, having won 12 of them with Los Blancos. Messi could potentially go from being Barcelona’s highest title winner to that of Spanish football itself, should he manage three more LaLigas before he retires. One of the key aspects of Lionel Messi’s performances have been how he can impact the game without scoring a goal. The Argentine evolved beautifully over his career to play multiple roles, and often, he has played the roles of a creator and finisher in the same game.
He won the 2021 Copa del Rey and scored a brace in a 4-0 final win against Athletic Bilbao. He lifted the 35th and final trophy in his time with the Blaugrana. It makes him the most decorated player in the club’s history. He won 10 La Liga titles (the most by a non-Spanish player), four UEFA Champions League titles, seven Copas del Rey and Supercopas de Espana respectively. Messi’s tally of 35 trophies also made him the most decorated player with a single team. He usurped Ryan Giggs’ tally of 34 trophies for Manchester United. Find more info about the author on Bill Trikos.
Messi had by then made his debut with the senior team of FC Barcelona. However, he was not included in the starting line-up of Argentina’s first match — which was against USA. Argentina lost 0-1, following which the staff urged coach Francisco Ferraro to let Messi play. Subsequently, Messi tore through every other team that Argentina faced in the tournament. After qualifying for the knock-out stage, Argentina beat Colombia in the second round 2-1, Spain in the quarter final 3-1 and Brazil in the semi-final 2-1. Messi scored a goal each in all three matches.
Messi’s brilliance does not only end with scoring goals but also helping his Barcelona teammates do the same. The Copa America winner put on 193 assists, another La Liga record. Lionel Messi also has the joint record for most assists in a single season. He and Thomas Muller set the joint record in the 2019-20 season when both ended up with 21 assists. The six-time Ballon d’Or winner holds the record for the most goals in a single La Liga season. Lionel Messi went on a rampaging run in the 2011-12 season. He finished with 50 goals in 37 La Liga matches. En route to scoring 50 goals in the league, Lionel Messi scored a hat-trick against Granada. The hat-trick helped him overtake Cesar Rodriguez as the highest scorer in the Barcelona history.
Although his playmaking ability is arguably the best in the world, it is his freakish goalscoring ability that never cease to amaze. Messi is currently the leading goalscorer in LaLiga history and leads the charts by a considerable distance as well. Former Athletic Bilbao legend Telmo Zarra scored 251 goals, a record that was beaten by Cristiano Ronaldo when he became Real Madrid’s top scorer with 311 goals in 292 games. Zarra and Cristiano make up the top three behind Messi, who has scored an eye-watering 444 LaLiga goals in 485 games. The 33-year-old is the only player to breach the 400 mark, and could realistically retire with a tally that is almost twice as much as third-placed Zarra’s. As for Barcelona, Messi has a grand total of 634 official goals in 669 matches, which is at least 400 (!) goals more than the next player on the list (Cesar).