Lionel Messi’s 2012 will go down in football history after scoring 91 times for club and country. Somehow, a compilation of him from that year without including any of his goals is still outrageous.
Messi scored 79 times for Barcelona and 12 for Argentina in 69 games en route to winning the fourth of his seven Ballon d’Or awards.
He smashed the previous world record of 85 goals in a calendar year set by Bayern Munich and Germany legend Gerd Muller 40 years earlier. We’ll likely never see it matched.
What if we told you that just looking at the goals would be doing Messi a disservice? He was at another level in all aspects of his game.
Messi was untouchable in almost every game, despite Barcelona only winning the Copa del Rey that year.
The future World Cup winner dictated the tempo in Pep Guardiola’s final season as coach. By this point, Barcelona had won two Champions League titles in three years and established themselves as the world’s best team.
It put a bigger target on Messi’s back, especially in games against Real Madrid.
Los Blancos manager Jose Mourinho tasked his defenders to rough the diminutive playmaker up as much as possible. We all know about Pepe and Sergio Ramos’ antics.
Fans online have reacted to the compilation, which has been viewed by 1.4 million people at the time of writing.
One person said: “I can’t believe Messi was doing all this and then still scored 91 goals.”
Another put: “Wonder what his actual record would be if these big chance creations were brought into contention, how can anyone say he isn’t the greatest?”
A third tweeted: “The biggest PR for Cristiano Ronaldo is that he got compared to Messi while being at least two levels below him.”
While someone put: “We’ve all seen these but have we ACTUALLY analysed these games and clips? Look at the efficiency of his dribbling, the perfect weight of his passes, his insane composure. He just never looks sloppy, he’s pure football ffs.”
Mesis was asked about that legendary year as it came to a close by El Pais. He admitted he’d rather have trophies than individual awards, which is why it’s a good job he’s collected plenty of both in recent years.
“I prefer to win titles with the team more than individual prizes or scoring more goals than anybody else,” he admitted. “I’m more interested in being a good person than being the best footballer in the world. After all, when all this ends, what do you take with you?
“When I retire, I hope people remember me as a decent person. I like to score goals, but also to have friends among the people I have played with.”
