The UEFA Champions League is undoubtedly the biggest stage in Europe, where the biggest and best etch their names in history, forever. And with four medals and six top-scorer awards in his bag, Lionel Messi is unquestionably one of the best players that have ever strut his skills in the competition.
One glaring stat that proves Lionel Messi’s barely-matched (hardly matched?) pedigree in the EFA Champions League, especially with his club of close to two decades that he’s just left, is the all-time scoring record he has set in the competition.
Messi stands alone on the pinnacle with the most goals ever – his 125 is more than Barça’s next five all-time scorers combined, with Luis Suarez second in the list with 25, Rivaldo has 22 to his name, with Neymar, Patrick Kluivert, and Luis Enrique having 21, 20, and 19 respectively. Their goals combined amount to 107, 13 short of Messi’s. And even if one were to add legendary goalscorer Samuel Eto’o’s tally of 16 here, the Argentine only trails them by just three goals. Which is sheer madness.
His longevity aside, this is obviously owing to Messi’s hitherto unparalleled goal-scoring prowess at the highest levels across the European continent. His first goal in the UCL came in the 2005/06 season as Barcelona cruised to a 5-0 win against Panathinaikos.
His most recent one, though, while having then been hailed as being spectacular in its own right, was easier to be relegated from popular memory due only to the fact that the Catalans were no longer as incivible as they were as they crashed out of the Champions League vs Paris Saint-Germain, 5-2, on aggregate.
Trivia Pursuit fun fact – Neymar’s last goal in the UCL for Barcelona came against PSG as well. Odd how things often work out.