The legend continues 

©IMAGO

On a day that will go down in football history, Inter Miami drew 1–1 at home against Nashville in the second leg of the CONCACAF Champions Cup round of 16, the result mean the Herons were knocked out of the competition. But the result was merely a footnote on a night that will be etched in the collective memory of the sport: Lionel Messi reached the extraordinary milestone of 900 goals as a professional, a new chapter in a career that has been redefining the limits of what is possible for two decades.

The milestone comes after 1142 matches played throughout his professional career. A figure that reveals another dimension of the achievement: Messi maintains an average of 0.79 goals per game, which equates to scoring a goal every 1.27 matches over more than twenty years at the elite level. Maintaining that pace over such a vast number of matches is a statistical rarity even among the greatest goalscorers in history. If that average were to hold over time, the 1,000-goal mark could come into view in approximately 127 more matches – a projection that once again highlights the magnitude of his enduring influence.

The goal that took him to 900 also marks his 81st for Inter Miami, the club where he stands, by a wide margin, as the all-time leading goalscorer. With just seven matches to go before reaching 100 appearances for Inter Miami, Messi maintains an average of 0.87 goals per game, a figure that confirms his impact even at the age of 38 in a league that today revolves largely around him.

In Barcelona, people often speak of a ‘before and after Messi’ era, and the statistics back up that claim. At the Catalan club, the Argentine not only became the most influential player in its history, but also its all-time top scorer. There, he scored 672 goals in 778 matches, averaging 0.86 goals per game across nearly 800 official appearances. A record that, on its own, would be enough to cement his legend.

Messi: Who were his favorite victims?

His three favourite victims belong to the elite of Spanish football and have suffered for years from his extraordinary knack for scoring goals. The main one is Sevilla, against whom Messi scored 38 times in 43 matches, followed by Atlético de Madrid, with 32 goals in 43 matches, and Valencia, against whom he scored 31 goals in 36 appearances. Close behind on the list is Real Madrid, the fifth-most punished opponent of his career, with 26 goals in 47 matches. Nashville, the club against whom he scored to reach this extraordinary milestone, is his favourite victim in the United States, having been punished with 8 goals in 12 matches.

His spell at Paris Saint-Germain was probably the furthest removed from the emotional bond that characterised other moments of his career. The Argentine never quite connected with the Parisian atmosphere and some of the club’s ultras remained critical of his performances. With eight matches to go before reaching the three-figure mark with Inter Miami, PSG will be the only club for which Messi played fewer than 100 matches: he played 75 matches between 2021 and 2023, scoring 32 goals, an average of 0.43 per match – a figure which, whilst exceeding the standard of many elite strikers, falls far short of the benchmark he himself set throughout the rest of his career.

With the Argentina national team, Messi also spearheaded a generational transition that took years to consolidate but ultimately took him to the very pinnacle of international football. Today, he is the team’s all-time leading goalscorer and also the player with the most appearances for the Albiceleste, having played 196 matches, and could reach the symbolic milestone of 200 international caps at the next World Cup. To date, he has scored 115 goals for his country, averaging 0.59 per match, figures that place him among the top international goalscorers in the history of football.

Messi has now scored in 22 consecutive years

At 38 years of age, Messi has now scored in official matches for 22 consecutive years, a run that spans generations, leagues and completely different footballing contexts. A scoring consistency that speaks not only of talent, but also of longevity, adaptability and a level of competitiveness that is out of the ordinary in the history of the sport.

For over two decades, he has made us believe that the extraordinary is the norm. But today it is worth pausing for a moment to appreciate the significance of those 900 occasions on which the name Lionel Messi was, inevitably, associated with a goal celebration.