Former Barcelona captain and Paris Saint-Germain superstar Lionel Messi is now football’s top scorer without penalties goals.
The legendary striker scored in PSG’s 1-0 win over Lyon, taking his non-penalty goals to 672, surpassing the 671 of Pele and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Lionel Messi - The Man of the Match on PSG vs Lyon
The 34-year-old was rightly named as the Man of the Match on Sunday night, a feat he achieved while playing 150 fewer games than the Portuguese counterpart.
The Argentina international finished with a cheeky goal inside the box. Interestingly, the two ex-Barcelona players combined to score, with Neymar providing his eighth assist of the season in all competitions, helping Messi to complete the goal.
Despite this, the Portugal captain remains at the top of club football’s goalscoring charts, with the 37-year-old scoring 699 goals in 941 club appearances from Sporting, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus.
Messi, on the other hand, has scored 689 goals so far, despite only making 823 appearances for Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain.
In addition, in terms of matches, the two modern football legends have played a total of 35 games in all competitions.
In these games, Ronaldo has scored 20 goals and provided an assist, while Messi has 21 goals while providing an impressive 12 assists.
Messi’s performance in the ongoing Ligue 1 season has been impressive to say the least. Unlike Ronaldo, who failed to even make it into United’s starting XI under Eric Ten Hag, the Argentine has scored six goals in all competitions in just 11 games so far.
The seven-time Ballon d’Or winner recently broke another record when he scored against Maccabi Haifa in the Champions League, becoming the first football player in history to score in 18 consecutive seasons in the competition athlete.
What a camera angle š„ pic.twitter.com/n54mCQiUX6
— Best of Football (@BestofFootball8) September 19, 2022
