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Barcelona's 2018/2019 season officially ended on Saturday night, with the Catalans losing 2-1 to Valencia in the Copa del Rey final to end their hopes of a second double in consecutive years.
While the club might have won La Liga for the 26th time in their history, their underperformance on the continent as well as shock loss in the Copa final means that the season would be classified as something of a failure.
Few weeks ago, the Blaugrana had their sights genuinely set on completing the treble for the third time in the last decade, but at the conclusion of the season have only the league title to show for their efforts.
As expected, Barcelona's charge was led on all fronts by Lionel Messi, with the Argentine icon scoring 51 goals and registering 19 assists from 50 matches in all competitions to crown another successful season on an individual level.
The 31-year-old is no stranger to breaking records, having set the bar so high with his performances in the last decade that he has totally redefined what it takes to be considered a football great in the modern game.
While Barcelona as a collective might be disappointed with how the season panned out for them, on a personal level, Lionel Messi had a productive campaign. In this piece, we shall be highlighting five records which the little magician set during the course of the 2018/2019 season.
#5 First player to score 40+ goals in 10 consecutive seasons
As recently as two decades ago, 25-goal seasons were the norm for good strikers, while 30-goal seasons were reserved for the best of the best. 40-goal seasons were virtually unhear of.
To put this in perspective, legendary forwards of the recent past like Raul, Shevchencko, Alan Shearer, Thierry Henry, Ruud Van Nistelrooy but to name a few never scored 40 goals in a single season, while the great Ronaldo de Lima did so just once in his illustrous career.
Incredibly, Lionel Messi has reached or surpassed the 40-goal mark for the last ten years consecutively, reaching that benchmark for the first time in the 2009-2010 season, scoring 47 goals from 53 matches in all competitions to help Barcelona to a league glory.
He showed that this was no fluke by maintaining his amazing ratio for each of the next ten seasons, with his all-time high coming in the 2011/2012 campaign when he scored 73 goals from just 60 matches which formed the bulk of his record breaking haul of 91 in the 2012 calendar year.
This season, the five-time Ballon d'Or winner scored 51 goals from 50 matches in all competitions and even though he could not inspire the Blaugrana to continental glory, it takes nothing away from the amazing season he had in front of goal.
#4 The player with the most wins in La Liga history
When Lionel Messi made his La Liga bow on 16th October, 2004 at the age of 17 years, three months and 22 days (at the time the youngest player to make his La Liga debut for Barcelona), only a handful could have predicted just how great the skinny Rosario-born youngster would go on to become.
Messi had shown promise as a fledgling academy prospect in the Barcelona youth sides, but he moved on from that to become unarguably the best player in the Catalan side's illustrious history.
Great players help their sides win matches and it comes as no surprise that Barcelona have won an abundance of matches with their record goalscorer in their ranks, as he possesses the uncanny knack of almost single-handedly deciding fixtures on his own.
The 31-year-old equaled the mark set by Real Madrid legend Iker Casillas for most La Liga wins in history, with his brace in the 2-0 victory over Espanyol late in March, enough to take him to 334 victories in Spain's top-flight.
Just a week later, the record was all his as he helped inspire his side to another 2-0 victory over Atletico Madrid, typically scoring a goal in the match.
In total, Messi has won 338 matches, with his record coming from 452 matches at an astonishing win ratio of 74%. Those victories have helped Barcelona win the league title on ten occasions, with him scoring a whopping 419 goals.
#3 Becoming the most decorated player in Barcelona's history
Barcelona is the most decorated club in football history, with 91 major honors won, while some of the most legendary players to laced up boots and taken to the lush green field have donned the famous colors of Barcelona.
However, of all the illustrious names to have represented Barcelona, one man stands heads and shoulders above the rest as the player to have won the most major trophies in the history of the club.
Since making his first team debut in 2004, Lionel Messi has won an unbelievable 34 major titles, which is more than any other Barcelona player in history has managed and he had a major say in every one of them, as you'd be hard pressed to find players who contributed more to Barcelona's successes in each competition.
His medal haul reads like a what's what of major titles in club football, as the Argentine record goalscorer has won everything winnable on the club scene including 10 La Ligas, five Champions Leagues, three UEFA Super Cups and six Copa del Reys among others.
#2 First player to score in six different Copa del Rey finals
Barcelona are the most successful club in the history of the Copa del Rey, triumphing on a record breaking 30 occasions, and they have been utterly dominant in the competition in recent seasons, making the final in each of the last six seasons consecutively, while winning four between 2015 and 2018 before the heartbreak by Valencia on Saturday.
A large part of this recent near invincibility has been down to the displays of Lionel Messi who has played a major role in seeing Barcelona triumph, scoring in six of the eight finals (2012 and 2016 being the exceptions) that the club has participated in with him in the side, helping them win six titles.
This means that Messi has scored in six different Copa del Rey finals, making him the first player to achieve this distinction and with him not showing signs of stopping anytime soon, we can be sure that he would be around to extend the record by a couple of more finals.
#1 Winning a record-extending sixth European Golden Shoe
Lionel Messi's status as one of the best players in the history of the game is not in doubt. However beyond that, the mercurial Argentine is also arguably the greatest goalscorer to have graced the game of football.
He has made the art of goalscoring look like child's play, seemingly scoring goals for the fun of it and with over 600 career goals, few in history can claim to have been more lethal in front of goal than him.
Over the last decade, nobody not named Cristiano Ronaldo has been able to match Messi's brilliance, as the pair stood high above everyone else, effectively being each other's only competition in their legendary battle to be considered the greatest of their generation.
It therefore goes without saying that that pair have regularly outscored everyone else, winning 10 of the last 11 European Golden Boots between them, but Messi has unarguably been the more lethal of the duo, winning the prestigious award on six occasions.
Ronaldo became the first man to win the award on four occasions when he did so in 2015, but Lionel Messi seemingly took that as an affront, winning the last three awards consecutively to take him to a total of six European Golden Shoes which is more than anyone else has managed in history.
His best tally to win the Golden Boot came in the spectacular 2011/2012 La Liga season when he scored the unbelievable total of 50 goals from just 37 matches although it was not enough to see Barcelona lift the league title as Real Madrid pipped them to it that season.
His stake to this season's award was never in doubt, as the Barcelona number 10 opened up a tangible gap ahead of others almost from the start of the season, not having any competition until Kylian Mbappe launched a late and ultimately futile push and on evidence of this, it might be some while before anyone else lays his hands on Messi's prized asset.
