Lionel Messi Still Holds Remarkable La Liga Records Despite Barcelona Struggles

Lionel Messi still holds multiple La Liga records despite dealing with issues in Barcelona recently.

In the past few weeks, Barcelona has been plagued with controversies and to make matters worse, it involves their long-time captain, Messi. After a series of losses, the Argentine's frustrations at Barca reached a boiling point when he took exception to sporting director Eric Abidal questioning some of the players.

Messi expressed his rage on Instagram, firing back at his former teammate and accusing him of damaging the club's reputation. As a result, reports have emerged in the following days that the Barca superstar’s future at the club is now beginning to be a question.

However, what separates Messi from the pack is his ability to still perform amid all the drama outside the field. In fact, his latest hat-trick of assists helped his side come from behind to scrape past Real Betis on Sunday. Once again it was “Leo” who led his team back on track as Barca won 3-2 in Seville.

The 32-year-old’s pinpoint pass onto Frenkie De Jong's chest and free-kick into the box for Sergio Busquets twice canceled out Betis' lead in an enthralling first half. Clement Lenglet then headed home the winner from another Messi cross in the second half, CNN reported.

Prior to this victory, Messi already ushered his possible Barcelona successor Ansu Fati to making history as the youngest ever player to score a double in La Liga. Of course, Fati’s back-to-back goals were courtesy of Messi himself.

This just goes to show how resilient Messi is as a club captain. Though it is quite evident that the Messi playing for Barcelona lately isn’t the Messi fans are used to seeing.

Messi became a legend because of his “magic” when it comes to goalscoring. But now, it seems like he has found a different way to help his club win. He has evidently taken a step back and instead of bagging goals for himself, the legend has developed an assisting clinic for his teammates.

Nevertheless, Messi still holds the following remarkable records in La Liga.

“No player has scored against as many different La Liga opponents than Messi”

The legendary captain has scored against 37 different clubs in the Spanish top flight in his career. His most frequent victim is Sevilla, whom he was, rather strangely, scored against 37 times.

“No othe player in La Liga ever scored as many free-kicks as Messi”

Messi has scored an astonishing 34 times directly from free-kicks in La Liga, six of which came during the 2018/19 season. Of that half dozen, three were in consecutive games against Real Betis, Espanyol, and Villarreal.

“Messi is the king of La Liga hat-tricks”

In December 2019 against Mallorca, Messi hit his 35th La Liga hat-trick (most in all-time), surpassing his eternal rival Cristiano Ronaldo's record of 34.