Lionel Messi is officially the most outstanding footballer to ever play for FC Barcelona and in the Spanish La Liga. The 33-year-old Argentine football star attained a new height in his football career on Sunday, March 21, 2021, when he led Barcelona to play against Real Sociedad.
The La Liga match was the 768th time Lionel Messi has played for FC Barcelona. This means that he is Barcelona’s player with the highest number of appearances. He has broken the appearance record of the club’s former star Xavi.
In his 768th match for FC Barcelona which ended 6-1 in favor of the Spanish giants, Lionel Messi scored two goals and provided an assist. The win took FC Barcelona to the second spot on the league table, four points away from the first placed Atletico Madrid.
After the game, the official Twitter handle of Spanish La Liga listed out the achievements of Lionel Messi in the Spanish league. At the end of the list, the league body referred to the Argentine football star as a Goat (Greatest of All-Time).
The tweet concluded that Lionel Messi has the most goals in the league, most assists, most wins, most braces, and most hat-tricks. Also, Lionel Messi owns the record of most teams scored against, most goals in a single season, most FC Barcelona appearances, most Barcelona titles, and most POTM awards.
📌 Messi records in #LaLigaSantander…
— LaLiga English (@LaLigaEN) March 21, 2021
▪️Most goals
▪️Most assists
▪️Most wins
▪️Most braces
▪️Most hat-tricks
▪️Most teams scored against
▪️Most goals in a single season
▪️Most Barça appearances
▪️Most Barça titles
▪️Most POTM awards
GOAT for a reason. 🐐#RealSociedadBarça pic.twitter.com/B1tuDfqTw9
Since the Spanish La Liga came out with this list, fans of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have been having a go at each other. The disagreement has been that Cristiano Ronaldo came to La Liga and spent over 8 years in the league without being able to stop the reign of Messi before he left for Juventus in 2018.
Though Messi’s 23 goals and 10 assists in 26 league games were not enough to place FC Barcelona on the first spot, the stats have given Barcelona a better goal difference than the first placed Atletico Madrid. Barcelona are ahead of third-placed Real Madrid with two points.
After the 6-1 win over Real Sociedad on Sunday, the coach of FC Barcelona, Ronald Koeman said he was happy that other players like Sergio Dest, Anoeta, Anthony Griezmann, and Ousmane Dembele scored which proved that the job of scoring does not only rest on Messi.
“It’s always important for players other than Leo to score goals. That way it’s much harder to defend against us,” Koeman.
“In a difficult game like this one you must be effective in the box and it’s also crucial to go in front to ensure your opponents leave you more space. Once we went ahead we really punished them…
“Every game from now on for us, Atletico and Real will be difficult. It’s going to be very exciting until the end of the season and we just have to keep on playing as we are.”
