Lionel Messi: The Record Man in The Champions League

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Lionel Messi: The Record Man in The Champions League | Lionel Messi: The Record Man in The Champions League  If there is a word whose meaning is more than spectacular or fantastic, the word is addressed to Lionel Messi. His action in ripped fishnet of Bayer Leverkusen  made him as the first player to record a pack of five goals in one Champions League match.

Messi appears very strong in the second leg 16 of the Champions League, yesterday morning. He contributed five goals in Barcelona's 7-1 victory over Leverkusen in the Camp Nou, as well as win tickets to the quarter-finals. Contribution that reinforces the 24-year-old player as the best of all time. "I do not remember the last time I scored five goals.

Messi missed Barcelona's last league match due to suspension and, according to team-mate Cesc Fabregas, was "eager to do something special." He didn't disappoint.

  

After racing on to a through ball in the 25th minute, Messi beat a dangerous Leverkusen offside trap and, after a flash of a look to see where the defence were (trailing hopelessly behind him), scooped an impudent lob over the goalkeeper to open his night's scoring.

More of the same swiftly followed. Just before the break a trademark finish. Picking up a pass from Andres Iniesta on the right, he cut back in on his favoured left foot and, slaloming past three static German defenders, picked his spot low to the far post.

Leverkusen will have ben grateful for the interval. But once the teams were back on the pitch it took Messi just four minutes to complete his hat-trick.

Again playing of the shoulder of the last defender, Fabregas played him in. The one touch control with the left foot to bring the ball down was perfect. The little half stop and step movement to buy space from the covering defender poetry and the right-footed chip over the goalkeeper just incredible.

With 49 goals in 64 games, Messi is the fourth top scorer in the history of the Champions League (since 1992-93), behind Raul (71), Ruud van Nistelrooy (56) & Thierry Henry (50).

Messi has scored 12 goals this season in the Champions League, which equals the best total in a Champions League campaign (since 1992-93). The others to reach that tally were Van Nistelrooy (2002-03) & Messi himself (2010-11).

This season, Messi has scored twice as many goals as any other player in the Champions League, ahead of Bayern Munich's Mario Gomez with six.

Since his goal in the 2009 final, Messi has scored 33 goals in 30 Champions League starts. It had been a year since he last scored at the Nou Camp in the competition (3-1 v Arsenal, 8 March 2011).

Messi had seven shots against Leverkusen, six of them on target.

Messi scored his 49th Champions League goal at the age of 24 years, eight months & 13 days old. When reaching the same target, Raul was aged 27 years, four months and 27 days - while Van Nistelrooy and Henry were aged 30 and 31 respectively.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

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