As an unusually small child growing up in Rosario, Lionel Messi was suspicious of his brothers.
With the ball practically as tall as his knee, Messi thought that his siblings were letting him run rings around them on the dusty local pitches to avoid a typical tantrum from their younger brother.
Three decades later, the slightly taller Argentine must be convinced of his otherworldly talent – unless arguably the greatest playing career of the modern era has been painstakingly orchestrated by Rodrigo and Matias Messi to placate little Lionel.
The Lens backline were certainly obliging foes as Paris Saint-Germain’s playmaker scampered onto Kylian Mbappe’s deft return pass on Saturday night. Scurrying between the gaggle of yellow and red, Messi stuffed a crisp shot into the far corner to bring his career tally to 495 goals across Europe’s top five leagues.
In the history of the first divisions in England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France, only Cristiano Ronaldo has scored as many goals.
Ronaldo accrued 626 appearances in the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A before sending himself Saudi Arabia. Messi, by comparison, needed just 572 outings to match his long-standing rival, spending around 74 fewer hours on the pitch to find the net just as often.
“I think less and less about scoring goals,” Messi mused in January 2020.
“Obviously I like scoring, and If have a chance I’ll take it, but every time I go on to the pitch I’m less focused on scoring goals and more focused on the game. I’ve never been obsessed with goals.”
The same, surely, cannot be said of Ronaldo.
Messi claimed that his focus had begun to shift to the role of a facilitator. “I’m starting to step back more and more to be the creator rather than the one who finishes,” he explained. While matching Ronaldo in front of goal, Messi has long been the more prolific assister.
Across Europe’s top five leagues, Messi is credited with almost 100 more assists than Ronaldo could muster before plying his trade with Al-Nassr. Rumours of an eye-watering move for Messi to join Ronaldo in the Middle East have been rife as contract negotiations with PSG stall.
Barcelona find themselves entwined in a complex financial web but are keen on bringing Messi back to Camp Nou. Catalonia, of course, is where the vast majority of Messi’s goals came.
Messi surpassed Telmo Zarra’s record of 250 La Liga goals in 2015, aged just 27, finishing with a sickening 474 in Spain’s top flight by the time he tearfully departed in the summer of 2021. No player in any of Europe’s premier divisions has ever scored as many goals in one competition as Messi.
After scoring at least 20 league goals 13 seasons in a row in Spain’s top flight, Messi is yet to hit that threshold in Ligue 1. The slick slot into the bottom corner against Lens took the 35-year-old’s tally up to a modest 15 – which represents a significant improvement from his debut return of just six goals.
A few years after warning of a decline in his goalscoring, Messi may finally be feeling the pinch of Father Time – especially as he contends with a more physically demanding league. Nevertheless, despite his relative drop-off, Messi can still make opposing defenders look like appeasing siblings wary of a hissy fit.
