Lionel Messi: Goals record caps golden year for Barcelona star
Last updated on .From the section Football
The statistics are staggering, the milestones apparently endless and the performances continue to defy belief.
At 25, Lionel Messi is reaching the peak of his powers. It is difficult to see how he can improve having found a rate of scoring few thought possible and married it to an incredible level of consistency.
The debate about whether he is the greatest of them all can wait, but the phenomenal speed with which he is breaking records cannot be ignored.
Messi has set new records at such a rate during his career as to render them almost meaningless. This one, however, is significant.
Against Real Betis on Sunday, Messi broke Gerd Mueller's phenomenal 40-year-old mark of 85 goals for club and country in a calendar year. He equalled the record by surging at the Betis defence before sending in an angled shot, while a low drive in the 25th-minute of the first half put Messi on his own pedestal of 86 goals.
It was a record many thought would stand forever - untouchable until the boy from Rosario arrived on the scene.
Udo Lattek, who managed Mueller at Bayern Munich in 1972, the season the German set the record, said: "Gerd [Mueller] was my best player but he was different from Messi. Leo is a better player. He is the best there is, a marvel of football, like a god.
"Without Messi, Barcelona is Barcelona. But with him, they are the best in the world."
Mueller was a fearsome competitor. With a powerful build and a low centre of gravity, "Der Bomber" had the strength to resist most defenders and coupled that with an incredible habit of finding the net however unlikely the situation.
His ruthlessness in front of goal set him apart, both for club and country, and he ended his Bayern career with 365 goals in 427 league appearances. For Germany, he found the net 68 times in 62 matches.
Where Mueller was a poacher and a finisher, Messi is much more. His bewildering repertoire of faints and swerves, sudden stops and bursts of pace are allied to tremendous physical strength for such a slight figure.
His goal-scoring in 2012 has been staggering, even by his standards.
In the first five months of the year he became only the third player to win the Ballon d'Or three times, the joint top scorer (with 14 goals) in a single European Cup season, the first player to score five goals in a single game in the Champions League era, the youngest player to reach 150 La Liga goals, and Barcelona's all-time top scorer.
He also broke the record for the most competitive goals (68) scored in a single European season, also previously held by Mueller. He has won 19 trophies, more than any other at his age.
He is on course to become the Champions League's top scorer for a fifth consecutive season and has already scored 21 goals in La Liga this season, eight more than the second-placed Cristiano Ronaldo.
On his way to beating Mueller's record, Messi has scored six hat-tricks, twice scored four goals and on one occasion scored five. There have been highs and more highs, with his best run of form seeing him score 24 goals in 13 matches. His longest goal "drought" lasted all of three matches.
Incredibly, he has scored 48% of Barcelona's goals in 2012, the club winning 91% of their matches when he has scored and just 47% when he has not.
What is more the statistics show that in 2012, Messi actually gets better as the game wears on and is more likely to score in the final 14 minutes than at any other time in the match. As defenders' legs grow weary, the Argentine comes into his own.
So, another landmark moment for Messi - and not the slightest sense that he is jaded, or crowds weary of his predominance. Spirits are still lifted by the sight of him in action, a man totally in command of his talent playing with the joyful exuberance of a boy in the schoolyard.
He has already carved a place in the imagination of the football world, but he insists he still has some way to travel.
Now we must simply celebrate being invited along for the ride.
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"Cristiano merely tries to make the refs job easier by highlighting a foul."
Very good of him, always trying to be helpful.
You must be having a laugh, doubting Messi physically, but saying the talented but soft Ronaldo could hack it in other era's. Christiano would have run a mile twenty years ago, Messi despite his size is physically strong and less prone to going over in a strong wind like Ronaldo. Christiano was the first, worst and still is a diver. Take the rose tinteds off mate.
Secondly.. Golden year for Messi? He won one trophy.. He's certainly had better haha!
The gap between 2nd and 3rd in England was 19 points though, so it's not that uncommon.
I've been thinking, and clearly Thuram could give Cafu a run for his money.
Those of you who keep going on about how much easier it is to score in Spain than England might want to have a look at who the current top scorer in the Premiership is.
No matter what happens, it will be a debate that rages on forever. Maradona vs Messi, could Messi win Napoli the league Maradona style?
And Celtic beat Barca so that argument is nonsense!
Do I take it that Cluj are better than Man U after their victory then. By the way Garrincha and Eusebio played in different positions, Garrincha was special, but had problems off the field, hence his lack of longevity. And Coluna nicknamed "The Sacred Monster" was the fulcrum of the Portuguese side in 1966.
100) I agree, Ronaldinho was amazing at his peak, I would add Zidane, Rivaldo, Henry and fat Ronaldo to that generation.
@57 Messi scored 74 gls from inside the box. Is he not a poacher too?
Michu scored 15 in 37 in La Liga, he has 12 in 15 in The Premier League. So he's on course to score nearly twice as many.
I'm not sure Thuram was a top full back for much less time than Cafu, personally I'd say he was the better full back at his peak but clearly it's down to opinions, there's not much in it either way (same for if you add Zanetti into the debate).
What about Michu? He scores for fun against rubbish and decent sides alike in the EPL, but only scored a handful of goals in the second half of last season for Rayo.
Plus, the goals-per-game ratios in La Liga and The EPL are very similar this season, so your point about the EPL being very defensive, I'm not too sure what you mean there.