Betis Sevilla 1-2 FC Barcelona
With his two goals against Betis, the Argentine broke the all-time record of goals scored in a calendar year set by Gerd Müller in 1972.
74 with Barça
Of the 86 goals scored by the Argentine, 12 of them were for Argentina and 74 were for his Club (official matches). He scored 56 in the Liga, 14 in the Champions League, 3 in the Copa del Rey and 2 in the Spanish Super Cup.
Müller, on the other hand, set the record in 1972 by scoring 72 goals for Bayern Munich and 13 for Germany, he played a total of 60 matches that year. Messi equalled/broke the record at the age of 25, Der Bomber was 27 when he set the record in 1972.
Leo Messi has written another historic page in his legendary career. After the match, Messi said, “the record is great for what it means, but the most important thing is that the team won and that we maintained the distance with the teams behind us.” Messi, who was doubtful ahead of tonight’s match because of the knock he received in the game against Benfica, said, “I was eager to play after the scare on Wednesday.”
Despite making history tonight, Messi joked about the amount of goals he’s scored this year after the match. “I’ll try to score more goals to make it more difficult for the next player that tries to break it,” he said jokingly. Messi added: “When the year starts the objective is to win it all with the team, personal records are secondary.” The Blaugrana striker was then asked about the Ballon d’Or, a prize Andrés Iniesta is also a finalist for. “If Iniesta wins it, it will be totally deserved and it would make me very happy. It’s a title for the whole team.”
“Betis are a great team”
Messi also talked about the match against Betis. The Argentine declared that “Betis are a good team and it was an important victory, because it’s really hard to win here.” After his two goals, Betis fired back to come within one of Barça. “We went ahead early and Betis created chances, but we also could have scored more goals.”
