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Mapped: Lionel Messi breaks Champions League goal record. Where has the Barcelona man scored all his goals?
Lionel Messi only needed to score one goal last night in order to become the top scorer in Champions League history. But Messi doesn't do things simply. Not content with one, he bagged a hat-trick with his weaker right foot in a 4-0 win over Apoel Nicosia.
Ahead of Barcelona’s trip to Apoel Nicosia tonight, the diminutive magician was tied with Raul on 71 goals. Now, after scoring his fifth hat-trick in the Champions League, he is alone at the top.
Nicosia is now the 33rd European city to have been graced with Messi's goalscoring genius.
40 of Messi’s 74 Champions League goals have come on home turf at the Camp Nou, yet his record on the road is equally as impressive. The top scorer in La Liga history took just 91 games break the same record in the Champions League.
Messi has scored in all but three of the European cities he has visited on his Champions League travels to date. The Argentinian has failed to score in London, Liverpool and Munich – and it’s in the UK capital where he has the worst record.
Messi has played 536 minutes of football in London, against Chelsea and Arsenal, yet is still without a goal in the big smoke.
Messi’s best goals to game ratio is in Plzen and now Nicosia, where he averages a goal every 30 minutes, having scored a hat-trick in his one and only appearance against Viktoria Plzen in November 2011 and another in Tuesday's game.Messi’s best goals to game ratio is in Plzen and now Nicosia, where he averages a goal every 30 minutes, having scored a hat-trick in his one and only appearance against Viktoria Plzen in November 2011 and another in Tuesday's game.