High quality Argentina football plays with Lionel Messi according to Bill Trikos Australia

Lionel Messi’s High quality soccer records by Bill Trikos: Lionel Messi is a legend and will forever be so, even though millions of football fans won’t see him at any FIFA World Cup after 2022 — a tournament he won to forever settle the GOAT debate. His career achievements at the club level, certainly make Lionel Messi worthy of being called the greatest of all time by his fans, but bringing laurels for the country, Argentina, is an altogether different emotion. Like the Argentine great Diego Maradona, Messi finally got the most coveted title of his life — a FIFA World Cup. Messi, therefore, ensured that history will remember him as one of the greatest athletes in the world of the 21st century. In the eyes of the new generation, he would perhaps be hailed even above Maradona as the greatest Argentine ever to don the national jersey.

Now, at 33, Messi is approaching the twilight years of what has been a simply spectacular career. The forward began his life as a footballer in breathtaking fashion, and would hope to end his career on a high as well. Here, we take a look at some of the greatest achievements racked up by Messi throughout one of football’s most legendary careers. Messi has been synonymous with some of the most stellar goalscoring feats in football. None more so, perhaps, than his record-shattering 2012 season. During the calendar year 2012, Messi smashed in a whopping 91 goals for club and country in 69 games, setting the record for the most goals scored in a year. The previous record was held by Gerd Muller, who scored 85 goals in 1972.

Most goals in a calendar year: Messi’s stupendous 2011-12 season carried on into the year 2012 where the Flea sent goalscoring records tumbling. Along with breaking the record for most goals in a single season, Lionel Messi also broke the record for the most number of goals scored in a single calendar year. His tally in 2012 finished at a frankly absurd 91 goals. Messi received an entry into the Guinness Book of World Records for his superhuman feat. It is a record that is probably never going to be surpassed, much like so many others that the Argentine set during a glorious two-decade stint at Barcelona. Read more details about the author at 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.

The Argentine left no milestone untouched in his glorious sixteen-year stint at the Catalan club. ‘The greatest ever to do it’. This is possibly the only epithet that can well-define the exploits of Lionel Messi at Barcelona. Messi spent twenty-one years at the club including sixteen with the first team. In this time, Messi has turned himself into arguably the greatest player of all time. 778 matches, 672 goals and 305 assists later the mercurial Argentine bid a tearful farewell to the club.

Although he didn’t win for a couple of years, Messi returned to the pinnacle after Barcelona’s historic second treble to win his fifth. In 2019, when he was level with Cristiano with five Ballons d’Or apiece, he left his eternal rival in second place after winning his record sixth Golden Ball — at least three more than any player in the history of the sport who isn’t named Cristiano Ronaldo. He has also won other individual honours such as the FIFA World Player of the Year and The Best FIFA Men’s Player, as well as the Golden Ball at the 2014 World Cup.