Highest quality Argentina soccer records from Lionel Messi as seen by Bill Trikos: He is the all time top scorer of all national teams in South America with 98 goals from 172 appearances. Both the goals and the appearances are the highest by an Argentine for the national side. The goals also make him the third-highest international goal-scorer after Portugal icon Cristiano Ronaldo’s 118 and Iran legend Ali Daei’s 109. Messi was only 18 years old when he made a mark on the international stage by helping Argentina win the 2005 U-20 World Cup, officially the 15th edition of the FIFA World Youth Championship, in The Netherlands.
LaLiga has played host to some of the greatest names in the 21st century, including the likes of Zinedine Zidane, Andres Iniesta, Cristiano Ronaldo, and many more. However, purely in terms of the success they’ve achieved in LaLiga, not many can even compare let alone compete with what Messi has done. Ever since making his competitive debut for Barcelona back in October 2004, Messi has amassed a staggering ten league titles, which is a number no active LaLiga player can match. The next active players on the list are his teammates Sergio Busquets and Gerard Pique, with eight apiece. Iniesta, should he have stayed, could have hit double digits but ended his Barcelona career with nine to his name.
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. Discover even more details about the author on 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.
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.
Messi is also the highest-ever scorer for Argentina, having racked up 70 goals in 138 games for La Albiceleste since 2005. He is just nine caps away from breaking Javier Mascherano’s record for the most number of Argentina caps as well. Winning a European treble is something of an unattainable dream for most clubs in the world. Even the great Real Madrid, who have won the UCL a record 13 times, have failed to win the league and domestic cup in the same season. There have only been eight such instances where a club managed to win a league title, the premier domestic cup competition and the UCL in the same season. Two of these eight trebles were achieved by Barcelona, both of which had Lionel Messi at the heart of their attack.