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| Messi celebrates goal vs Manchester City |
Like we always said, Lionel Messi is the king of football and breaks a record with every goal he scores. The little genius must have over a million records to his name but he doesn’t look to be getting any tired and just keeps on smashing them without pity.
Messi netted a hat-trick to help Barça beat Manchester City in the UEFA Champions League, his second hat-trick of the new CL season, achieved in two games. With the hat-trick, Lionel Messi broke ten different football records, it’s not amazing anymore because it’s Messi, the insane becomes the routine for him, he does this every time. Here are the ten records Messi broke with hat-trick against Manchester City.
10 RECORDS MESSI BROKE WITH HAT-TRICK AGAINST MANCHESTER CITY
1. Most UEFA Champions League hat-tricks in football history: As of last season, Messi had five Champions League hat-tricks to his name, two more than Cristiano Ronaldo but the Real Madrid forward netted two hat-tricks to make it five apiece.
However, with the 2016/2017 season kicking off and Messi not wanting to share that honour with anyone, the Argentina netted a hat-trick in each of his two games in the competition to take his tally to 7, at least two more than any other player in the competition’s history. The seven hat-tricks came against Arsenal (4 goals), Viktoria Plzen, APOEL, Bayer Leverkusen (5 goals), Ajax, Celtic and Manchester City.
2. Only player to score hat-tricks vs two English teams in UEFA Champions League history: In 2010, Lionel Messi put up one of the best performances in the CL history, netting four times against Arsenal.. Messi’s hat-trick against Manchester City meant that he became the only player to score a treble vs two different English team in the competition’s history. Amazing.
3. First ever player to score hat-tricks in his first two Champions League games of the season: Lionel Messi started 2016/2017 UEFA Champions League with a bang, scoring a hat-trick and providing an assist in his first game against Celtic. He missed Barça’s second game against Borussia Mönchengladbach but returned against Man City and netted another hat-trick whilst assisting another. He becomes the only player in the history of the competition to get two hat-tricks in his first two CL games of the season.
4. Second player in Champions League history to score back-to-back hat-tricks: Messi’s hat-tricks against Celtic and Manchester City in his first two games meant he scored back-to-back CL hat-tricks, becoming only the second player in the competition’s history after Luiz Adriano in 2014/2015.
5. Most goals at home in the history of UEFA Champions League: Messi’s hat-trick meant he has now scored a total of 50 CL goals at home, surpassing the previous record of 49 home strikes held by Real Madrid legend Raul González who scored for both Madrid and Schalke 04 in Germany.
6. Messi now has 16 goals vs English teams in the CL. At least 7 more than any other player in the history of the competition: The hat-trick vs Manchester City meant Lionel Messi now has 16 goals in his last 15 games against English teams in the Champions League, no other player in the history of the competition has more than 9 goals against English oppositions.
7. Most Champions League goals in a single stadium: Lionel Messi has only played for Barça, and being the player with the most home goals in the CL, he is also the player with the most goals in a single stadium in the history of the UEFA Champions League with 50 strikes, four more than his closest rival Raul González who netted 46 with at the Santiago Bernabéu.
8. Messi’s 16 goals vs English teams meant he has now scored more goals in the Champions League vs English teams than he has vs teams from any other nation: The myth is that Messi can’t do it in the Premier League but somehow, 16 out of Messi’s 89 UEFA Champions League goals have been against teams from England, that is an astonishing 18%, more than he has vs teams from any other nation in the Champions League.
9. Real Madrid are the only team to have more hat-tricks than Lionel Messi in the history of the UEFA Champions League: Since the new format emerged in 1992, Real Madrid have 9 UCL hat-tricks in this period, two more than Lionel Messi and they are the only team that can boast of having more UEFA Champions League hat-tricks than Messi. This means that if Messi was a team, he’d be second on the list of teams with most hat-tricks in CL history, it’s insane! Messi has 7, same as Bayern Munich.
10. Messi now becomes the player with the most goals against Manchester City in the UCL: Messi had previously needed twice against Manchester City and his hat-trick on Wednesday meant he’s now the player with the most goals against the English Champions in their UCL history. Messi now has five goals against them, joint with Doumbia who also has five, Leo has the chance to surpass Doumbia as Barça play one more game against Man City in the group stage.
