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Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are undeniably two of La Liga’s greatest ever footballers. The five-time Ballon d’Or winners own most of the records in European football, let alone La Liga.
But there are a few records that will take some doing to break by even these two greats.
Let’s take a look at the La Liga records that neither Messi or Ronaldo will never break.
#5 Most La Liga appearances
Ex-Barcelona goalkeeper Andoni Zubizarreta has made the most appearances in La Liga history. Zubizarreta has appeared in 629 La Liga games in his career and half of them came for the Catalan giants.
At the moment, the duo of Messi and Ronaldo is not even in the top 10. Messi has made 419 appearances in La Liga so far, while Cristiano Ronaldo has made only 294.
Messi might fall well short of the landmark as he is still more than 200 games away from Zubizarreta’s milestone and needs at least six full La Liga seasons to get close to that. He will be 31 this summer and might not have enough time to break Zubizarreta's record.
#4 Fastest goal
Former Barcelona man Seydou Keita holds the record for the fastest goal in La Liga history. In a game against Almeira, in 2014, he set the record in a Valencia shirt when he put the ball in the back of the net, just 7.6 seconds after the kick off to beat Joseba Llorente’s previous record of 7.8 seconds.
It is not only the fastest goal in La Liga history, but fastest in all of Europe’s top 5 leagues (Premier League, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, La Liga, and Serie A). Scoring a goal within 10 seconds of kick-off needs some luck and both these players might not break Seydou Keita’s scintillating record.
#3 Most consecutive hat-tricks
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have scored a total of 63 hat-tricks (Ronaldo: 34 and Messi: 29) in La Liga so far. But both Messi and Ronaldo have never scored a hat-trick of hat-tricks in La Liga until now.
The two have scored back-to-back hat tricks on quite a few occasions but never managed to score three in a row. The only player to have achieved this in La Liga history was Real Oviedo’s Isidro Langara who scored a hat-trick of hat-tricks in 1935.
Langara is a three-time winner of the Pichichi trophy and arguably one of the great footballers of all-time. Messi and Ronaldo might get a chance to equal his record, but breaking it is close to impossible.
#2 Most goals in a single game - 7 goals
Two players have done it in the past and one of them is a Barcelona legend, Laszlo Kubala. He achieved this feat it in 1952 when he struck seven goals in a game against Sporting Gijon.
Athletic Bilbao’s Agustin Sauto Arana did it previously in 1931 in a game against FC Barcelona.
Cristiano Ronaldo scored five goals in a game twice, once against Granada in April 2015 and then against Espanyol the same year.
Messi’s maximum number of goals in a single La Liga game is four. Given the demands of modern day football, Messi and Ronaldo might not even get close to breaking that record.
#1 Fastest hat-trick
Spain's top goalscorer David Villa holds the record for the fastest hat-trick in La Liga history. In 2005/06 season, he scored a hat-trick in 4 minutes and 47 seconds when playing for Valencia in a game against Athletic Bilbao. He found the back of the net in the 82nd, 84th and 87th minute of the game.
Given the time players take to celebrate these days, it is near impossible for anyone to beat David Villa's record. Cristiano Ronaldo once came close to that when he fired a stunning 8-minute hat-trick against Granada in 2015.
It was the only occasion that either Messi or Ronaldo came close. Atletico Madrid's Kevin Gameiro failed to beat that record by just 4 seconds when he scored the second-fastest hat-trick in LaLiga history in a 4-1 win over Sporting Gijon in 2017.
