Whatever the date, time, or year, it is always safe to assume that Lionel Messi is continuing his march in parades re-writing history and celebrating new football records while raining on the parades of his innumerable victims over the years, especially those quaking in the goalmouths.
This season as well, despite going through what has been referred to as an underwhelming season for the diminutive maestro, Messi has broken yet another one of the biggest records in club football, and quite possibly the biggest one yet.
Since Pele played his last ever game for Santos, he held the record over four decades for the most goals, an insane 643, any footballer had ever scored for one club with. He played at the highest level for over a decade to achieve this, and viewers thought all these years that nobody could ever reach those heights again.
Until a certain young Lionel Messi suddenly popped up, snot-nosed and making his debut for Barcelona in the mid 2000s. Since then, the GOAT of Spanish, and possibly global, football has not looked back. After etching his name on a whole smorgasboard of achievements ranging from the most goals in a calendar year, and the most goals in La Liga, to the most goals for Barcelona, and so on, he finally came gunning for that held by Pele.
And while it did take some time, he finally achieved it with a blustering thumper into the bottom corner against a flailing Jordi Masip and Real Valladolid.
What a truly world-beating achievement, and Budweiser – one of the primary sponsors of La Liga – decided to commemorate it by sending out 644 specially earmarked bottles of beer across the world to the 160 goalkeepers who have ever had the gone th rough the trepidation of conceding a goal, or quite a few more in the case of some, to Leo Messi.
Jan Oblak, one of the world’s finest to ever stand in between the posts, has been on the receiving end ten times – admitting with unabashed candor the impossibility of predicting how and when Messi will score – while others like Casillas and Diego Alves will receive 17 and 19 bottles, respectively. Each bottle bears La Pulga’s distinctive picture in his trademark celebration pose, with the goal number(s) scored against that goalkeeper.
The most alpha move world football has ever seen? Possibly but it’s all just part of a normal occurence in the celebrated life of not-so-arguably the greatest footballer ever.
Salut!