Sunday, 28th October, 2012
Lionel Messi is closing in on Pele’s record from 1959 and Gerd Muller’s from 1972, having moved on to 73 goals within a calendar year.
The magical Argentine scored twice last night as Barcelona hit five past Rayo Vallecano and in so doing scored his 72nd and 73rd goals of 2012.
That puts the 25-year-old two goals behind Pele, who notched 75 goals in 1959 and 12 goals off German striker Gerd Muller, who managed a simply astonishing 85 goals in 1972.
Messi’s strikes last night also helped him to reach over 300 goals in his career so far.
Indeed, Messi has now scored 301 goals when his strikes for both Argentina and Barcelona are taken into account.
Of those goals, the forward has scored 270 with Barcelona and 31 for Argentina in a grand total of 419 matches.
relatedNewsStoryMessi’s goals also helped Barcelona to continue their fine start to the season, as the Rayo Vallecano victory moved the club onto 25 points from nine games.
Barcelona have won eight and drawn one, and are now eleven points ahead of Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid, who are due to play today against Mallorca.
Any further slip-ups on the part of Los Blancos will surely mean game over in their efforts to retain the Spanish crown.
