Lionel Messi once again showed why he’s the world’s best by scoring all the five goals in Argentina’s 5-0 victory against Estonia on Sunday.
In a dominant fashion, the Lionel Scaloni’s men had 79% of the ball possession, 24 shots, and 10 on target with the win taking their unbeaten run to 33 matches. With Messi turning 35 in the summer, he will once again be a key player for Argentina in the World Cup and his stats in the game against Estonia proved so.
Here are some mind-blowing stats after his latest masterclass.
- Messi is the first player in the history of the Argentinian national team to score five goals in one game.
- This was the eighth time he’s scored a hat-trick for the national team and his 56th career hat-trick, which places him four behind long-time rival Cristiano Ronaldo.
- This was the second time in Messi’s career that he’s scored five goals in one game. The last time was in a 7-1 Champions League victory against Bayer Leverkusen back in March 2012.
- With his latest five-goal haul, Messi has now surpassed Hungary legend, Ferenc Puskas, for international goals. Only Malaysia’s Mokhtar Dahari, Iran’s Ali Daei, and Portugal’s Ronaldo have scored more national team goals than Messi.
- The 34-year-old has scored 10 goals in his last 10 appearances for Argentina, a run that also included a hat-trick against Bolivia and a man-of-the-match display in the Finalissima against Italy.
- Messi has extended his lead as the all-time top goalscorer for South American nations. He’s now nine ahead of Pele’s total of 77 goals for Brazil – the previous record. He’s also now moved ahead of Pele for total career goals – 769 to the Brazilian icon’s 767.
- The Argentinian’s 86 international goals have come in 162 appearances. That’s a rate of 0.53 goals per game – in other words, roughly one goal every two games.
- No player in the history of football has more goals and assists than Messi. He’s now reached the milestone of 1100 direct goal contributions – 769 goals and 331 assists in 974 appearances for club and country.
