The Argentine is just nine goals away from taking reaching 76 goals in a calendar year and breaking Pele’s tally of 75 set in 1959. With 16 games to achieve the feat he is almost certain to attain it and potentially end doubts over his best player ever tag.
Not content at being widely considered the greatest player in the world, potentially of all time Lionel Messi is now chasing down the current recipient of that mantle, Brazilian Pele as he intends to break further records.
The Argentine forward may be in a toss-up with Portuguese rival Cristiano Ronaldo in the race for the Balon D’Or this season, and with it the prestige of being the world’s best player, although regardless of that outcome debate will continue to intensify and rage on in relation to the ‘who is the greatest’ tag right now.
But Pele knows that his record of 75 goals in a single calendar year is being hunted by ‘La Pulga’ who continues to score goals at will. The additional goals are coming from his recent form for Argentina. He has been criticised in the past for his form for Albiceleste but bagged an impressive brace against Uruguay on Saturday to take him to 67 goals, and just nine away from defeating the 53-year-old record, standing since 1959.
That year saw the Brazilian legend scoring 66 goals for Santos and nine for Selecao. Debate rages about the difficulty of the Brazilian league compared to today’s La Liga, and many will argue that Messi’s record is of a higher magnitude considering the large influx of foreign players across the globe. However that very reason made the Brazilian league of the 50s and early 60s an entirely different prospect to what it is now, as much fewer than the current estimated tally of 1230 Brazilian nationals plied their trade abroad.
However if Messi breaks the record then surely he will begin to be named the greatest player of all time. He can gain more ground during Wednesday’s match-up with Chile, where he can add to his international tally of 11 goals in seven appearances this season.
At aged 25 Lionel Messi can take a record that seemed insurmountable to take from the grasp of Pele. In nine goals time, an amount the diminutive wizard should have little or no problem achieving, he will have broken the record of the most official goals scored in a calendar year.
He has 14 games for Barca and two more for Argentina to achieve the feat, while a goal-per-game ratio of one in two may seem difficult to some, for Messi it is just a matter of when he takes the record from the Brazilian legend and not if.
Will Messi reach 76 and break the 53-year-old record held by Pele?
image: © prettyfriendship
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