Messi scores and assists in the Champions League

Paris St-Germain’s Lionel Messi is putting in a remarkable performance, just like in his best days, with the 2022 Qatar World Cup, which would be his last.

Messi scored and assisted twice and led the match with Maccabi Haifa to a 7-2 win in the Group H clash of the 2022-2023 UEFA Champions League. With Wednesday’s victory, PSG sealed their place in the round of 16, regardless of the outcome of the final match. PSG are in the first place, with three wins and two draws (11 points).

Messi has become the first player to set a record of 10 goals and 10 assists in Europe’s leading five football leagues, with four goals and three assists in the Champions League, and 16 goals and nine assists in the French League. Neymar scored one goal and one assist in Wednesday’s match and set a record of 10 goals and 10 assists just 22 minutes later than Messi. Neymar currently has a record of 19 goals and seven assists in the French League and two goals and three assists in the Champions League. Messi has become the oldest player to record multiple goals and multiple assists in a single Champions League game (35 years and 123 days old).

Messi scored 80 goals in total in a group stage at the Champions League, setting the record for the most scored goals, broadening the gap with Ronaldo, who is in second place with 73 goals. Messi is 11 goals behind Ronaldo, who has scored 140 goals in total, in the all-time scoring charts of the Champions League with 129 goals.

Joining Paris St-Germain in August 2021, Messi scored six goals in 26 French League matches and five in seven Champions League matches. A single-digit score was his first in 15 seasons, and Messi was left out of the top 30 in the 2022 Ballon d’Or, which evaluates performances based on the past season in 17 years. However, Messi has returned by scoring 10 goals in eight matches in the Argentine national team. “I’ll never get tired of scoring,” Messi wrote with a sense of pride on his Instagram account after Wednesday’s match.


Jae-Yeong Yoo elegant@donga.com