The Argentinian, who believes it will be his last major individual trophy, leaves several records for the history books

Leo Messi collected his eighth Ballon d’Or in Paris on Monday and it was the latest in a long series of awards.

A trophy that bore his name since he lifted the World Cup last December 18, the title he was missing and with which he completes an enviable record with Argentina.

“I think yes, this is going to be my last Ballon d’Or,” he said in an interview.

The Argentinian knows that, now away from the spotlight of the big leagues, the time of the Ballon d’Or is over for him and that what happened on Monday was a wonderful The Last Dance.

Messi, winner of the Ballon d’Or for best player of the year 2023

If even the protagonist himself says that the count has reached its conclusion, now we have to wonder if there will be anyone who will reach that figure one day.

It seems difficult to repeat, given that he is three behind another monster like Cristiano Ronaldo and that the next players on the list have three (Platini, Cruyff and Van Basten), i.e. less than half the number Messi has won.

But that’s not the only ‘Pulga’ record that seems ‘impossible’ to beat, here are five others.

91 goals in a calendar year

We are talking about the sum of club plus national team, but to get an idea of what this figure, which Messi achieved in 2012, is, let’s talk about names.

Lewandowski and Cristiano Ronaldo, two goal-scoring animals, have reached a maximum of 69 in a calendar year.

The Pole did it in 2021 at ultra-dominant Bayern and the Portuguese star at Real Madrid in 2013.

More examples: Haaland and Mbappe have 44 and 40 goals so far in 2023, with two months of competition to go, respectively.

It seems to all of us that the Norwegian has had a superb year… and he is 47 goals behind Messi’s record.

82 goals in a season (73 for his club)

The two figures, both total goals (national team plus club) and those scored at club level alone in 2011/12 are a record.

Again we compare to see how complicated it is to reach that mark: Cristiano, his most prolific goalscoring season, reached 61 with Real Madrid (2014-2015) and 66 if you add those for Portugal.

Gerd Muller scored 67 in total in 1972/73 and Pele 66 in 1957/58.

Messi’s tally in 2011/12 is that of an extraterrestrial.

50 goals in a league season

For 20 years, one of the questions in LaLiga was whether anyone would ever break the scoring record shared by Zarra and Hugo Sanchez, who scored 38 goals in the 1950/51 and 1989/90 seasons respectively.

Since 2010, Cristiano Ronaldo surpassed that barrier three times, Messi another three times and Luis Suarez on another occasion.

The one who went furthest was the Argentinian, who set the record at no less than 50 goals in a championship (Cristiano scored 48 in 2014/15).

19 consecutive matchdays scoring at least one goal

Again, the magnitude of the record is measured against the second and third, Ronaldo Nazario and Cristiano Ronaldo, who were able to score for ten consecutive matchdays.

Messi went all the way to 19, a full round of scoring every other team, in 2012/13. And the record was broken by injury, so it could have been even higher.

In fact, after the injury he scored again in the next two games, so he also holds the record for consecutive games played and scoring, with 21.

474 goals in LaLiga

Until the arrival of Messi and Cristiano, the top scorer in LaLiga history was Telmo Zarra, who is still third as the legendary Athletic striker scored 252 goals.

Well, Messi went on to score no less than 474 goals, 163 more than the second (Cristiano) and 224 goals more than the third.

To get an idea of the record, let’s compare it with the all-time top scorers in the other five big leagues: in the Premier League it’s Shearer with 260 goals (214 less than Messi in LaLiga), in Serie A it’s Silvio Piola with 274 (200 less than Messi in LaLiga), in the Bundesliga it’s Gerd Muller with 365 (109 less than Messi in LaLiga, and he’s the closest) and in Ligue 1 Delio Onnis with 299 (175 goals less than Messi in LaLiga).

Other more ‘human’ records

To talk about a human record when Messi is involved is to put a lot of inverted commas around it, but there are some Messi records that perhaps seem a little less complicated to break.

Take his six Golden Boots, for example, is that difficult to beat? Yes, but not impossible.

One can imagine Haaland winning many Golden Boots between now and the end of his career, for example.

Or the 106 goals for the Argentine national team, which is an outrage, but in these times of more and more matches, maybe a voracious scorer could come along and match it (very difficult, though).

He could also break the record for most games played in World Cups, which is held by Messi with 26 (he has played five, two of them until the last game).

In LaLiga he holds several records that time will tell how human they are: player who has won the most games (383), who has scored at least one goal (300, this one seems very difficult to beat), games with at least two goals (133), games with at least three goals (36)…

As the auditorium of the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris was saying on Monday, Messi is legendary.

Ole’s tribute to Leo

Leo Messi’s eighth Ballon d’Or went, unsurprisingly, to his country, Argentina.

La Pulga’s speech was very focused on his national team, acknowledging that the award was thanks to his triumph with the Albiceleste.

Messi tiptoed around PSG (he did acknowledge Mbappe, but did not remember the league title won with the Parisian club), named his fellow Argentinians present at the gala and finally had a nice touch for Diego Armando Maradona, who would have turned 63 this Monday as he dedicated the award to him.

Messi, as we say, showed his affection for Argentina, and this Tuesday the player has woken up with that affection back, as can be seen on the front page of the newspaper Ole.

Playing with the number eight and the infinity symbol, Ole simply headlines ‘Le8’ and it accompanies the headline with text that reads ‘In the season in which football paid him what it owed him, Messi won the eighth Ballon d’Or and dedicated it to Maradona. “This is also for you, Diego,” he said in Paris and thrilled an audience that gave him a standing ovation’.