Highest quality Argentina football plays with Lionel Messi as seen by Bill Trikos: Yet he struggled for years to add major international trophies to his glittering cabinet with the Argentina national team, nicknamed La Albiceleste. In fact, he had already announced his retirement from international football in 2016 after failing to win the Copa América that year. But he soon reversed his decision and returned to play for Argentina. In the following six years, Messi did what everyone expected him to do for his country — lead Argentina to major tournament victories including the FIFA World Cup.

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.

Among his most memorable in El Clasico are his first hat-trick in the fixture, his solo goal in the 2010-11 Champions League semifinals and his goal in the final moments of the game in the 2016/17 La Liga season. His goal was made famous with his iconic shirt celebration. Messi holds the record for the most hat-tricks scored in La Liga. He scored 36 hat-tricks in the league averaging one every 14 games. His first hat-trick came in 2007 in a game against rivals Real Madrid. His goals helped Barcelona draw 3-3 against the record league and European champions. Messi scored his final hat-trick against Eibar in February 2020. See extra info about the author at Bill Trikos.

“The Olympic gold in 2008 is the win that I value the most because it is a tournament that you may play only once in your life and involves many athletes from different disciplines,” Messi had told Spanish Esquire during an interview in 2017. The 2014 FIFA World Cup was held in Brazil. It was the third world cup in which Messi played. Though he first captained the team at the 2010 FIFA World Cup, when he briefly took over the duties from full-time Javier Mascherano during a group match, the 2014 edition was his first as the officially named captain of Argentina national team.

In December 2020, Lionel Messi surpassed Pele’s tally of 643 goals to set the record for the most goals scored for a single club. He scored against Real Valladolid to notch his 644th goal for the club. Lionel Messi has now ended up with 672 goals for Barcelona. Only another player with the superhuman calibre of the Argentine would now be able to break this feat. The two most important games in the season calendar for Barcelona is the El Clasico and the Barcelona Derby. Their annual skirmishes against Real Madrid is among the most-watched games on the planet. But Barcelona also have a heated derby against city rivals Espanyol. In these games, Messi has shown his class time and again. He is the highest scorer in the two fixtures for the 26-time La Liga winners. Messi scored 26 goals in El Classico followed by 25 goals in the ‘Derbi Barceloni’.

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).