At the age of only 24, Lionel Messi has surpassed many records in club football playing for Barcelona.
The Ballon d’Or winner for strikes late in the evening for Barcelona against Bayern Leverkusen to make it 19 in the knockout stage to break former Real Madrid striker Raul’s score of 18 goal in his knockout stage matches in Champions League.
On Valentine’s day Messi gifted himself a gift in shape of record for highest goals in knockout stages of UEFA Champions League, here in Germany against Bayern Leverkusen.
Messi has scored six times against Arsenal, twice against Real Madrid, Twice against Manchester, another two against Bayern Munich, two against Celtic, two against VFB Stuttgart and once against both Lyon and Shakhtar Donetsk to make the figure 18 and bring Messi level up with Raul and Shevchenko who are now in their mid-30’s and at the verge of retirement while Messi is just 24.
Messi now have 44 goals in UEFA Champions League, making him sixth behind all time top scorers – Raul (71), Ruud Van Nistelrooy (56), Theiry Henry (55), Shevchenko (48), and Inzaghi (46). While Cristiano Ronaldo having ranked up on 10th with his 30 goals.
Half of Messi’s goals in knockout phase are a visual proof to Barca’s recent success in Champions League. Messi missed the later phase of the Catalan win in Champions League in 2006 due to injury but was a major part of the 2009 and 2011 trophy wins, scoring in the two finals against Manchester United and adding two superb goals against Real Madrid in the semi-finals last year.
Messi’s biggest however, had been the gunners, against whom he has scored half a dozen times. Arsene Wenger described Messi as a “Play station” after the memorable 4-1 defeat against Barcelona in which the “super human goal scoring machine”, Messi scored all the four goals. The other 2 goals came against Arsenal in last season encounter where he scored twice in the 3-1 victory against gunners.
At the age of just 24, Messi have score 44 goals in UEFA Champions League and it is already being said that if no long injury strikes him he would end up his career with a large number of goals not only in Champions League but in other competitions as well.
GeoSuper