Champions League: FC Barcelona's Lionel Messi Reaches Historic Scoring Milestone

Football superstar Lionel Messi has added another accolade to his long list of achievements, making history as the only player to net a goal in 16 straight UEFA Champions League seasons.

The celebrated Argentine accomplished the monumental feat in FC Barcelona’s match against Ferencvaros on Tuesday when he drew first blood with a penalty kick at the 27th minute of the match.

Players such as Ansu Fati and Philippe Coutinho widened the gap on the scoreboard by drilling two more goals after Messi’s initial salvo.

Pedri and Ousmane Dembele then joined the scoring party by sinking in two more to compound the misery of their field counterparts.

The Camp Nou-based brigade finished the duel with a score of 5-1 to register their first victory in Group G of the tournament.

While Messi is the first player to score in 16 straight seasons, the FC Barcelona captain is the second stalwart to have managed to find the back of the net in 16 seasons, per Goal.

Messi is now standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Manchester United legend Ryan Giggs in the exclusive list. Moreover, no athlete in the history of the tourney has more group stage goals than Messi.

Despite Barcelona's impressive outing versus Ferencvaros, head coach Ronald Koeman is delighted that Messi was able to regain his old groove after a series of lackluster performances in their past games.

"Maybe Messi's form could be better at this moment, but he's happy, he's training well, he's focused, he wants to play and he wants to be captain of the team and he's improving. I haven't got any complaints," Koeman said.

The past few months have been very difficult for Barcelona as the club is currently going through big changes in their ranks.

For now, Messi is aiming to steer Barcelona to the Promised Land in this year’s Champions League. However, there is no guarantee that it will be a walk in the park for Messi and the entire cast.

Barcelona is expected to cross paths with Cristiano Ronaldo’s Juventus in Group G. However, it remains to be seen if the prominent Portuguese will suit up for the highly-anticipated clash on October 28 after testing positive for COVID-19 a few weeks ago.