Lionel Messi has set (yet) another milestone. FC Barcelona's Argentinian superstar has beaten Gerd Müller's 40-year-old record of goals. Messi opened the scoring at Barça's 2-1 win away to Real Betis Sevilla in the 16th minute, adding a second in the 25th, his goals #85 and #86 for club and country this year. And that doesn't have to be the end of it – by year's end, he might have added another three matches (two La Liga, one Copa del Rey) to his current list of 65.
For his part, FC Bayern Munich's legendary forward Müller had needed only 60 matches to manage 85 goals in 1972. "I've always said that I'm not obsessed by this record," Messi had said just days ago, adding, "my team-mates have told me they're going to help me break it, and it would be nice if things turned out that way. If they do, I can only hope that I can hold it for as long as Gerd Müller."
Müller had shown himself pretty relaxed about the prospect of having to pass the torch on to 25-year-old Messi, telling German daily Die Welt: "I am very glad for him, he's quite simply the world's best player at the moment and I just love watching him play," adding, "I don't really care that much for the title of record-holder, but if there's anyone who deserves to overtake me, then that's Messi!"
Barça website: "Messi, el Bombardero"
Messi's 86 goals in 2012 are broken down into 56 in the Spanish championship, 13 in the UEFA Champions League, 3 in the Copa del Rey, 2 in the Spanish Supercopa, and 12 for Argentina (7 of which in friendlies, and 5 in 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers). The two Seville goals were his 22nd and 23rd of the ongoing championship tournament; a figure that points at the likelihood of Messi beating his own astonishing record of 50 La Liga goals last season.
Amid all these statistics, fans could be excused for overlooking another milestone – with 192 goals for Barça to his name, Messi has now overtaken César Rodríguez as the Catalan club's most prolific goal-scorer; Rodríguez had scored a total of 190 goals in the Spanish League from 1939 to 1955. No sooner had Messi scored his first at Real Betis than the Barca website proudly proclaimed "Messi, el Bombardero" (this in allusion to Gerd Müller's German nickname 'der Bomber').
Messi's appearance on the pitch at Betis was all the more remarkable considering that he himself had been very pessimistic about as much as touching a ball again this year, having been taken away on a stretcher during Barça's Champions League tie against Benfica. Fortunately, what had been feared could be a cruciate ligament rupture, turned out to be just a bad contusion, allowing Barça's doctors to give him the all-clear for the match.
