Messi scores 600th Barcelona goal
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
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Lionel Messi's exquisite free-kick against Liverpool took him to another goalscoring milestone in style.
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Lionel Messi took his tally of competitive goals for Barcelona to an incredible 600 in stunning fashion on Wednesday.
Moments after bringing up the 599th goal of his 16-year career with a simple tap-in, Messi reached the landmark in trademark style as he bent a free-kick into the top-left corner of Alisson Becker's goal. It put the Catalan giants 3-0 up against Liverpool and on the brink of a UEFA Champions League final.
Career breakdown
112: UEFA Champions League
3: UEFA Super Cup
5: FIFA Club World Cup
417: Liga
50: Spanish Cup
13: Spanish Super Cup
Total: 600 goals
International club competitions
112: UEFA Champions League
Messi trails Cristiano Ronaldo's by 16 goals at the top of the UEFA Champions League all-time scorers rankings but – almost two and a half years younger than Ronaldo – the Argentinian may have time to eclipse the Juventus man's total even if he is off the pace at the moment.
Neither can realistically hope to equal the goals-per-game ratio of Gerd Müller (34 in 35 European Cup outings). For Messi to upgrade from his current 0.83 ratio (112 in 134 appearances) to match the ex-Bayern man's 0.97-per-game strike-rate, he would need to hit hat-tricks in his next ten UEFA Champions League matches.
3: UEFA Super Cup
Messi is the joint-leading scorer in UEFA Super Cup matches, along with Oleh Blokhin, Radamel Falcao, Arie Haan, Terry McDermott, Gerd Müller, François Van der Elst and Rob Rensenbrink. Nevertheless, having struck twice for Ajax in the pre-UEFA 1972 edition of the competition, Haan has a case for putting his actual tally at five – meaning Messi requires three more goals in the traditional European season opener to definitively claim the title of top Super Cup scorer.
5: FIFA Club World Cup
Messi has scored five times in three editions of the competition that brings together the winners of the various confederations' UEFA Champions League-equivalent tournaments. However, Real Madrid's recent dominance has allowed Ronaldo (7) and Gareth Bale (6) to move above him on the competition's all-time scorers list.
Domestic competition
417: Liga
Messi is the Spanish top flight's all-time top marksman, having surpassed Telmo Zarra's 251 in November 2014. Ronaldo scored at a more impressive rate during his time at Real Madrid (311 in 292 games – 1.04 goals per game) and has scored more top-flight goals (418: Portugal 3, England 84, Spain 311, Italy 20), though neither he or Messi have matched the continental-record final league totals of Ferenc Puskás (517) or Slavia Praha great Josef Bican (518).
50: Spanish Cup
Former Athletic Club centre-forward Zarra did not live to see Messi break his all-time Liga record – yet it is unlikely that Messi will wrest away the Bilbao great's Copa del Rey benchmark of 81 goals. Messi's total of 50 leaves him sixth on the all-time list, and he can add to his tally in this season's final, which pits Barcelona against Valencia in Seville on 25 May.
13: Spanish Super Cup
For the moment, this record looks secure. Messi's 13-goal haul is the mark to chase in the Spanish season curtain-raiser, and with the retired Raúl González second in the charts on seven goals, no one is close to taking it away from the Barcelona talisman.