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#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.
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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.
