What’s the story?
Lionel Messi’s two goals against Valencia broke all sorts of goalscoring records on Sunday. His first goal was his 40th for the season thus crossing the 40 goal mark in each of his last eight seasons. The second goal meant that he has now scored a record 100th brace in his career at Barcelona.
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In case you didn’t know..
Barcelona beat Valencia to close the gap on Real Madrid at the top of the La Liga table to just two points. The Catalan giants went behind to a very capable Valencia side on the night when Eliaquim Mangala headed the away team ahead, but the lead was soon cut down by a well-taken goal from Luis Suarez.
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Lionel Messi then gave Barcelona the lead from the penalty spot passing it beyond Diego Alves, with Eliaquim Mangala being sent off for a second bookable offense. On-loan Barcelona striker Munir El Haddadi, however, got the former La Liga winners level only to see Messi score his second early in the second half.
Andre Gomes rounded off the scoring late in the game to give Barcelona a 4-2 win on the night.
The heart of the matter
Lionel Messi’s form in the last ten years or so has made pundits and players pinch themselves in the past. The last time the Argentine didn’t score 40 goals a season was in the 2008/09 season when he won the first of his five Ballon d’Or awards.
In the last eight years, he has scored a staggering 410 goals, leading Barcelona three Champions League titles.
Video
Lionel Messi’s first goal from the penalty spot.
Lionel Messi’s second goal with his ‘right’ foot.
Author’s Take
It is incredible that a single player has scored 40 goals a season for the last 8 seasons. There are always going to be talks of if he is the best player in the world, and Cristiano Ronaldo is likely to be mentioned (he has scored 390 goals in his last eight season), but there is no doubt to the fact that he is and has been a phenomenon.
If you take Messi’s goals out of Barcelona (and also his contributions to the team), those five European Cups Barcelona have in their cupboard might just be two.
