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Image source, Reuters
Lifting the Champions League cup after beating Juventus on June 6, 2015.
Lionel Messi leaves Barcelona not only become a legend, but also the culé with the most goals, more games, more titles and more victories in the more than 120 years of the Barça club’s history.
Before his departure, the sports press does not save on praise:
“The best player in the history of culé is leaving,” says the newspaper Marca.
At BBC Mundo we review 10 figures from Barsa’s 10 that, among many more, reflect his great legacy:
21:
Those were the years that the Argentine star was at the Nou Camp.
“On September 17, 2000, Leo Messi arrived in Barcelona accompanied by his father. His dream was to sign for Barcelona when he was barely 13 years old,” recalled Marca in a report he did about the 20 years of the Flea in the box Catalan.
“It was not easy, but finally there was an agreement and he joined the children’s team.”
And he evoked the phrase of Carles Rexach, who was the club’s technical secretary: “You have to sign it now. We will regret it for life if we don’t. “
778:
They were the official matches that he played, with which he surpassed the emblematic Xavi Hernández as the player with the most duels played.
383:
They were the victories in the domestic competition, with which he became the player with the most triumphs in the Spanish League.
6:
It was the Ballons d’Or that he conquered and did so in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2019.
Image source, Reuters
In January 2013 he was honored with the 2012 Ballon d’Or.
Barcelona highlights on its website that it is the “only player in history who wins in the same season Golden Ball, FIFA World Player, Pichichi Trophy and Golden Boot“, which happened in the 2009/10 season.
672:
It was the goals he scored, a figure that makes him the top scorer in the same club. Behind, as Barsa indicates, he left “the 643 goals that Pelé scored with Santos between 1956 and 1974.”
73:
These were the official goals he scored in the 2011/12 season, which became the all-time top scorer in a season: scored 50 in the League, 14 in the Champions League, 3 in the Cup, 3 in the Spanish Super Cup, 1 in the European Super Cup and 2 in the Club World Cup) and 2 in friendly matches.
In addition, Barcelona stands out, he is the “only player who has been both top scorer and top assistant in the same season.”
91:
The official goals that he signed in 2012 and that led him to be the absolute top scorer in a calendar year.
Image source, EPA
Messi joined Barcelona when he was 13 years old. In this photo from 2007, he was celebrating a goal he scored against Espanyol at the Camp Nou.
According to Barsa, with the club he scored 84 goals: 59 in the League, 13 in the Champions League, 5 in the Copa del Rey and 2 in the Super Cup and 12 with the Argentine national team.
He also highlights that “he scored another 5 in friendlies with Barça, raising the figure to a total of 96 goals.”
35 (the 34):
According to Barsa, the state and international titles achieved by Messi since 2002 add up to: 10 Leagues, 8 Spanish Super Cups, 7 King’s Cups, 4 Champions Leagues, 3 Club World Cups and 3 European Super Cups.
However, the sports network ESPN makes a clarification: “34 were the titles of Leo Messi (with direct participation) in Barcelona. Some statistics indicate 35 because the Spanish Super Cup of 2005 is counted, where the Argentine did not play minutes “.
More than 30:
31 hat-tricks executed, a number that makes him the player with the most hat-tricks in the League. He also made 5 pokers, says the Barça club.
UEFA on its website said in a 2020 article that in total the Flea had scored 36 hat-tricks in the Spanish League.
The sports newspaper Olé evokes the first one he did for the symbolic:
“He did it in 2007, neither more nor less than in El Clásico. In that game, Real Madrid was winning three times, and Lionel appeared in all three to tie“.
26:
It was the goals he scored against Real Madrid, which makes him the player with the most goals in classics.
“In 2014 he surpassed Alfredo Di Stéfano (18) and entered the hall of fame of the most important party in the Iberian Peninsula,” Olé recalls.
To the meringues, Messi wrote down: 18 goals in the League, 2 in the Champions League and 6 in the Spanish Super Cup.
Messi’s legacy at Barcelona goes beyond the numbers, it even goes beyond the culé fans, it is a legacy for world football.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.