Lionel Messi broke Barcelona’s 60-year-old goal-scoring record with a hat-trick in a 5-3 win over La Liga rivals Granada at the Nou Camp on Tuesday.
Messi, 24, equalled the record with a volley off a post in the 17th minute and then broke it with a lob in the 68th minute.
The Argentine’s third – and 234th goal – came four minutes from time.
Cesar Rodriguez, who played for Barcelona in the 1940s and 1950s, held the previous record.
He was thought to have scored 235 goals for the club, but research by Barcelona’s Centre of Documentation and Studies and La Vanguardia newspaper showed he had scored three goals fewer.
Messi, the World Player of the Year who is in his eighth season with Barca, has now scored 54 goals in all competitions this season.
The Africa Cup of Nations kicks off on Saturday – with some of the continent’s footballing giants missing from this year’s finals.
Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Senegal, Zambia, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Angola, Gabon, Niger, Morocco, Tunisia, Ghana, Botswana, Mali and Guinea will compete in the 28th edition of the African Cup of Nations.
Egypt, the tournament’s most successful team, and Cameroon failed to qualify. While Nigeria were suspended for 2 years from International competition by their President, Goodluck Jonathan, for the team’s poor showing and early exit from the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.
Ivory Coast are favorites to be crowned Champions of Africa.
This compelling video of Lionel Messi, aged 10, shows the Barcelona superstar toying with opponents while playing junior football in his native South America.
Lionel Messi has won the Fifa Ballon d’Or prize for the best player of 2011, becoming only the fourth player in history to win the trophy three times.
The Argentine forward, 24, beat Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Barcelona team-mate Xavi to the prize.
“I think [Messi] is going to break all the records that exist,” said Xavi.
Messi, who previously won the prestigious accolade in 2009 and 2010, was man of the match in Barca’s 2011 Champions League final victory over Manchester United and also won the Primera Division, Spanish Supercopa, Uefa Super Cup and Club World Cup last year.
Lionel Messi grabbed a brace as a rampant Barcelona out-classed the Brazilians Santos 4-0 to lift the Club World Cup on Sunday and confirm their status as the best team on the planet.
The clash between the European and South American champions in Japan had been billed as a showdown between Messi, widely acknowledged as the best player in the world, and 19-year-old Brazilian sensation Neymar.
In the event, it was no contest – either between the two supreme talents or their teams – as Barcelona picked up their second world crown after winning the competition in 2009.
Messi, set up by Xavi, got the first after 17 minutes, before Xavi put Barcelona 2-0 up just seven minutes later to put them firmly in control, as prodigious forward Neymar struggled to get a sniff of the ball.
Cesc Fabregas, who pulled the strings in midfield, got the third on the stroke of half-time as the Spanish champions, who were at full-strength, threatened to run riot for the full house of 68,166.
With Landon Donovan making his second trip to Merseyside in the upcoming weeks ussoccer.com takes a look back at the MNT in England video series which follows members of the U.S. MNT on and off the field at their various clubs in England. “The Everton Experience” is a two-part episode with Donovan and other members of the famed Liverpool club speaking about his 10-week loan in early 2010.
Castrol EDGE proudly presents a film-documentary starring one the world’s greatest footballers, Cristiano Ronaldo, showing what makes him one of the best footballers of his generation. The film takes an in-depth look at the skills and strength required for Ronaldo to perform at the very highest level.
This amazing documentary explores the idea of mental and physical strength, demonstrating these qualities through a series of intensive tests.
Berlin were at number one with the theme to Top Gun when Sir Alex Ferguson took charge of Manchester United in November 1986, but a more appropriate cinematic reference from the autumn of that year is Highlander – the story of an ageless Scottish warrior whose feats transcend time.
Ferguson’s kind of magic is his ability to win trophies – and his haul of silverware and his longevity at Old Trafford are undoubtedly related.
But, putting to one side his repeated successes, the fact he has lasted 25 years as United manager is an unprecedented achievement at any level in the professional game in the modern era in England, let alone the very highest.
There are 13 managers above him in the long-serving list in this country but all of them began their tenures more than 100 years ago and cannot be fairly compared.
Unless, like Highlander’s Connor MacLeod, Ferguson really IS immortal, he is unlikely to outlast Fred Everiss, who spent 46 years as manager of West Bromwich Albion from 1902, for example.
But, back then, management was more of an administrative role than the delicate mix of tactical nous, mind games, media and man-management plus financial acumen that it is now.
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