Can the Chelsea and Liverpool strikers hold a candle to the Barcelona magician’s staggering performances? How do they compare?
Answer: Not very well. At all.
Take this shocking statistic:
Fernando Torres (3 in 36), Andy Carroll (5 in 31) and Luis Suarez (10 in 36) have scored as many goals in a combined 103 league matches as Lionel Messi has in 7.
The stat says a few things, firstly that £107.8 million worth of strikers have only scored 18 goals in 103 matches, but mainly that Lionel Messi is incredible.
In fact, Lionel Messi has scored more league goals, 34, this season than the whole Liverpool squad, 33.
Last night he bagged a hat-trick against Granada in a 5-3 win, scoring his 234th Barcelona goal, a club record. And yes, he is only 24.
Here are some more incredible Messi statistics:
This season he has scored 54 goals in 45 games. For a striker to score more than 50 goals in a season is phenomenal, but this is only March, how many will he get? 60? 70?
At this rate anything is possible.
Last season he scored 53 goals in 55 games, the season before 47 in 53, and 38 in 51 the year before that.
He has also tallied 45 assists in the past two seasons alone, proving he is far more than just a goal poacher.
This week he was confirmed as the world’s richest player, earning $52 million in the last year in wages and sponsorship endorsements. He has earned every penny.
If Carroll, Suarez and Torres played at their peak over the next few seasons, they might hold a torch to the incredible Argentine. Their combined records only though, as it’s fast becoming evident no modern player can compete with the magician Messi, even Cristiano Ronaldo.
Let’s face it, Messi is a modern day legend, and is pretty incomparable.
Is he the greatest player ever to play the game?
image: © Aitor Escauriaza
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