Rosario’s star Lionel Messi celebrated his thousand games as a professional footballer and thanked those who accompany him “on this beautiful trip”, in the preview of the clash of the Argentine National Team against the Netherlands next Friday, for the quarterfinals of the Qatar 2022 World Cup .
“Thousand games already, what madness… And always with the same illusion that I felt in the first one that I played as a professional. Thank you very much to all those who accompany me on this beautiful journey,” Messi wrote on his official Twitter account.
Messi, 35 years old and winner of the Ballon d’Or on seven occasions, reached the thousandth mark last Saturday, when the Argentine national team defeated Australia 2-1 in the round of 16, with a goal from him and another from striker Julián Alvarez.
La Pulga’s debut as a professional footballer took place on October 16, 2004, with Barcelona’s 1-0 win against Espanyol. Since then he has played 778 games for Barcelona, ​​169 for the National Team and 53 for Paris Saint-Germain. So far he has scored 789 goals, divided between Barcelona (672), Argentina (94) and PSG (23).
In the Qatar 2022 World Cup, Messi became the Argentine with the most games played (23) and surpassed the mark of Diego Armando Maradona (22). He also reached 16 games as captain of the Argentine national team in World Cups and broke the record of Mexican Rafael Márquez (15).
As if that were not enough, with the three goals he already celebrated in Qatar for the Major League, Messi reached nine goals in World Cups and is one step away from reaching the mark that Gabriel Batistuta has held for twenty years, with ten conquests.