he name Lionel Messi has become synonymous with breaking records as far as the round leather game is concerned.
The Argentine wizard has set and broken so many records we will not even attempt to list them all.
Time and space don't permit. But let’s examine the fact creating and breaking records has become part and parcel of his game. He demonstrated this once again by scoring against Chelsea for the very first time in his illustrious career.
It is becoming a common occurrence that he is about to set or break a record.
If another player has done something x number of times, Messi will make it x+1. If something has never been done, Leo will correct the problem. If he hasn't done it, sooner or later he will. He really can’t help it anymore. It’s embedded in his nature.
A player who holds records that may never be broken, he keeps adding more. Cristiano Ronaldo has beaten him to a few and still clings to some.
By and large, though, when all the records are collated and analysed, Messi is untouchable. No one debates football's greatest of all time without mentioning his name. He is simply magical.
Messi is La Liga's single-season top scorer with 50 in the 2011/12 season. He has the most hattricks in football history with 28. He also has 105 braces.
That’s the best as well but for Messi, it's just the tip of the iceberg. Let’s not even get into Ballon d’Ors won at the earliest age and so on.
In the build-up to the Champions League first-leg tie against Chelsea at the Stamford Bridge, there was this little matter of the magician having never scored against the London side. As tiny a matter as it seems, it made the headlines.
The American comedian George Carlin used to joke about attending Catholic school and trying to stump the nuns with questions about God.
"Could He make a stone so heavy He Himself couldn't lift it?" Silly things like that. Messi is subjected to similar speculation having obtained deity status as a footballer. When it's revealed there is something he hasn't done, it's news.
Thus his eight-game 'drought' against the Blues was the talking point for many match analysts and studio hosts. Soon enough it was trending on social media.
There was keen interest in whether the five-time Ballon d’Or winner would finally break the Chelsea jinx. One expects the man himself either pays heed or is made aware of such gaps in his legacy. Messi is rarely one to leave such anomalies unaddressed.
On a night where it appeared everything was going according to expectation, with Barcelona bossing possession, Chelsea did what it does best against the Blaugrana. The Blues defended stoutly, waited for opportunities to break quickly, counterattack, and nick a goal against the run of play.
Twice such opportunities knocked. Twice Willian knocked his shot off the post with Marc-Andre ter Stegen nowhere near the ball. It seemed a Manchester City/Wigan replay with the sides wearing different kits and playing at night.
Third time pays for all, however. Willian claimed his Will Grigg moment. He curled a shot inside the post and many thought, like the FA Cup upset, it was all over. The Blues would lock up shop and wait for the return tie.
An uncharacteristic mistake by Andreas Christensen precipitated the end. The Dane played the ball back across his 18-yard box. Iniesta beat Cesar Azpilicueta to the ball. A swift cut back from the ageless one and Messi was on hand to fire home the equaliser. In any language, it was a clinical finish. More importantly, though Messi had finally done it. He had proven once again that nothing was beyond him on the pitch.
Not scoring against the north London side was becoming an unwanted record. The hoodoo had to end. Twenty-nine shots and over 800 minutes of football against Chelsea without a single goal was becoming a record that attracted attention. Eight was not going to become nine. Messi can now concentrate on the return leg.
The only question is whether he can apply the same solution to a far more glaring omission from his record book while in Russia this summer?
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