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What's the story?
Lionel Messi and Barcelona ended an underwhelming season last weekend with a shock 2-1 defeat to Valencia in the Copa del Rey final. Despite securing their 8th La Liga title of the last 11 seasons, Ernesto Valverde's Barcelona will consider this season a failure having lost the cup final as well as suffering another humiliating exit from the Champions League, this time at the hands of Liverpool.
According to statistics compiled by TransferMarkt, Lionel Messi has finished the La Liga season with the second most number of match-winning goals (8), behind club-mate Luis Suarez (9) and Real Madrid's Karim Benzema (9)
In case you didn't know...
Lionel Messi has been on a goalscoring rampage this season, racking up 51 goals across all competitions for the Blaugrana. An astonishing 36 goals in 30 starts in La Liga helped Barcelona to secure the La Liga title with four matchdays to spare.
Despite scoring 12 goals in this season's Champions League, the mercurial Argentine talisman was unable to prevent Barcelona from going down 4-0 at Anfield as they got eliminated in the semi-finals by Liverpool. Messi had scored a brace in the first leg at Nou Camp, where Barcelona defeated the Merseysiders 3-0.
The heart of the matter
La Pulga faced further disappointment in last Saturday's Copa del Rey final, where despite scoring he couldnt prevent Barcelona from going down 2-1 against Valencia, with goals coming from Rodrigo and Kevin Gameiro. In a ranklist TransferMarkt.com compiled of number of match-winning goals for the 2018-19 La Liga season, the Barcelona captains finds himself in the 2nd position.
Karim Benzema of Real Madrid and Barcelona striker Luis Suarez both have scored 9 match-winning goals, while Messi and Athletico man Anotine Griezmann have 8 each. Messi finished the season winning a record-equalling 6th Pichichi title and the European Golden Shoe for his 36 goals in La Liga. He also currently leads the UEFA Champions League Top scorers charts as well with 12 goals.
What's next?
Lionel Messi heads to Brazil for the Copa America 2019, where he will be captaining the Argentina national team. The Albiceleste are in Group B alongside Colombia, Paraguay and Qatar and their opening match will be against Colombia on June 15th.
