Lionel Messi x 800 goals: all his tears, from the first with Ronaldinho to the last at the Scaloneta party

Mexican Rafael Márquez is shaking his head as if he doesn’t believe what he’s seeing from the substitutes’ bench. Dutch manager Frank Rijkaard smiles knowing he’s made history. Carles Puyol, Ronaldinho and Giovanni van Bronckhorst block the lad you just scored his first professional goal and they jump happily. The Albacete players do not fully believe what is happening, much less goalkeeper Raúl Valbuena, the first of many victims.

You don’t see him for the 17-year-old boy he is Lionel Andres Messi. To the human mountain are added Andrés Iniesta, the Portuguese Deco and the Brazilian Beletti. The delirium of the Camp Nou. The sequence takes place on May 1, 2005 and nobody wants to miss the scene because the feeling is unmistakable: something big is happening.

Years go by, titles arrive and goals and celebrations multiply. Lionel Messi has just scored his 800th professional goal. He did it in the ideal context. She couldn’t have gone better. He did it with the Argentina national team shirt, in a packed and passionate Monumental, in the great celebration of the world champions after obtaining his third star three months ago and a little bit at the World Cup in Qatar. He did it after taking 6 free throws and crashing 2 into the posts.

It is not possible that he had dreamed of so many goals when Ronaldinho invited him to ride him on that distant May night in Catalonia. 6,535 days passed. There’s no way to imagine 800 goals, there’s no room for a lot of desire. Yet, there is the Pulce who puts the ball on goal for the 800th time and, above all, he hasn’t tired of doing it yet.

It is convenient to provide three pieces of information to evaluate what Messi has achieved with his 800 goal. Angelo Amedeo Labruna He is the top scorer of Argentine football with 317 celebrations, Alfredo DiStefano Until Rosario broke in, he was the Argentine with the most goals in history with 523 goals, and Diego Armando Maradona He finished his glorious career with 352 goals, obviously Pelusa made them in about 700 games and La Pulga played 1,016.

There are goals of all colors in Messi’s career, of course. It is possible that the most special are the two he scored against France in the final of Qatar World Cup. And of the national team, as we know, he is the top scorer with 99 goals in 173 games. In addition, he gave away 53 assists.

The most goals were scored for Barcelona. Messi celebrated 672 times in 778 games and distributed 269 assists. “I don’t think about records: I only go out to play ball”, commented Leo in 2013, when his surname began to be engraved in the history books.

In paris saint germainLeo has put aside his lethal scorer facet to dress up as a hitch and witness the phenomenal kylian mbappe. Rosario himself is a friend of goals and against that there is nothing to do. At PSG he now accumulates 29 celebrations and 31 qualifications in 65 games.

Messi’s career includes 2 king-pokers, 6 pokers, 49 hat-tricks and 151 braces. Yes, a real beast. Also, in recent days, Oscar Barnade, journalist and statistician for clarionestablished that Lionel, with his free-kick goal on the hour against Lille in the French league, had equaled Maradona in 61 free-kick celebrations outside the box. Tonight, at the Monumental, waiting for his magic, it happened: he nailed her in the corner at the last minute.

But at what point did Messi stop being a skilled winger to become a serial scorer? The date and the occasion are remembered by all Rosario fans: May 2, 2009, the night Pep Guardiola placed him as a false 9 play against Real Madrid. It happens that this would be the take-off season for Pulce: he scored 38 goals. In his first 4 seasons he had scored 42 goals. His best season would be signed in 2011-2012, with 82 shouts (73 in Barcelona and 9 with the national team) in 69 games.

These 800 goals celebrated in Núñez are the officers. But other documents appear that further expand the legend of Leo. He scored 14 goals in the Sub 20 and 2 more in the Sub 23. Furthermore, the world champion scored another 40 goals in friendlies between Barcelona and PSG. More: in the lower ranks of the cast culé he scored 105 times.

Some years ago, Miguel Martínezwho he knew was the press officer of the Rosario Football Association, inspected the forms in which La Pulga appeared between 1994 and 1999 and came to the conclusion that he converted 234 goals in 176 games. So if we add 379 unofficials to the 800, the figure would remain 1,195.

All of Messi’s goals, both official and unofficial, have a common denominator: Celia Olivera Cuccittinihis maternal grandmother, who passed away in 1998. As you know, Leo dedicates (raises his arms to the sky) each of his goals to his Grandmotherwho knew how to accompany him in his youth and for which he felt and still feels a great weakness in his physical absence.

And there is no better way to close the note than by reproducing a dialogue that took place between Messi and his son Thiago and which La Pulga recounted in December 2015.

-Dad, are you going to score again?- Thiago asked with his innocent 3 years.

-Yes son. More goals – Messi replied, as if scoring goals were a mere formality.