Messi's 36th birthday - 36 things you might not have known about Argentine superstar

Inter Miami-bound Lionel Messi turns 36 on Saturday and this special day deserves a compiled 36 different stats, facts and pieces of trivia about one of the greatest footballers of all time.

How many hattricks has the Argentinian scored? Has he ever been sent off? How many trophies has he picked up during his glittering career?

Here are 36 facts and stats about the Argentine superstar which you probably didn't know.

1) Messi scored 672 goals for Barcelona - more than any other player in club history.

Pele held the previous record with 643 goals for Brazilian club Santos from 1956 to 1974. Pele, like Messi, travelled to the United States in his mid-30s and played for the previous NWSL's New York Cosmos.

2) Messi has scored 807 goals in his career (672 for Barcelona, 32 for PSG, and 103 for Argentina).

The goals are broken down by body part as follows: left foot: 676, right foot: 103, head: 26, chest: 1, and hand: 1. In June 2007, he scored his first 'Hand of God' goal against Espanyol. 

3) Messi scored 91 goals for club and country in 2012, the most ever by a top-level player in a calendar year. He eclipsed German legend Gerd Muller's 1972 total of 85.

4) Messi has more goals in Europe's 'big five' leagues than any other player in history. His goal for Paris Saint-Germain against Strasbourg last month was his 496th league goal, surpassing Cristiano Ronaldo's 495. 

5) Messi has won the Ballon d'Or a record seven times - two more than any other player. He was voted the world's best in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2019 and 2021 and, after his exploits at the World Cup last winter, few would bet against that number becoming eight.

6) Messi is the only player to win the Golden Ball (awarded to the tournament's best player) twice. He did so in 2014 in Brazil when Argentina lost in the final and then again last year in Qatar when he finally achieved his lifetime ambition of winning the competition. 

7) Messi has scored 50 goals or more in a season for his club on six occasions. His highest total is the 73 he netted for Barcelona in 2011-12. Despite this, his team failed to win either La Liga or the Champions League in that campaign (but they did win the Copa del Rey and the Club World Cup).

8) Miami's newest resident scored more goals for Barcelona (672) than the number of votes George W. Bush beat Al Gore by in Florida in the 2000 Presidential election (537). 

9) At the age of 13, Messi travelled from Argentina to Barcelona to join the legendary La Masia academy of the Spanish team. Before leaving in 2021, he made his competitive first-team debut in 2004 and won 35 titles. 

10) Messi has 103 goals for Argentina, making him one of only three men in history to have scored a century of international goals. Ronaldo of Portugal (123 points) and Ali Daei of Iran (109 points) are the other two.

11) At the 2022 World Cup, the Argentina captain scored in the group stage, round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals and final to become the first player since the tournament introduced the last-16 stage (1986) to score in every round in a single edition of the competition.

12) Messi has scored eight hat-tricks in the Champions League - more than Raul, Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney, Harry Kane, Mohamed Salah, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Ronaldo (the Brazilian one), Romelu Lukaku, Thomas Muller, David Trezeguet, Luis Suarez, Edinson Cavani, Diego Costa, Hernan Crespo, Gonzalo Higuain, Alvaro Morata, Antoine Griezmann, Nicolas Anelka, Leroy Sane, Ciro Immobile, Fernando Torres, Christian Vieri and Diego Forlan combined.

13) When Messi was ten years old, he was diagnosed with growth hormone insufficiency, which raised concerns that he might not be tall enough to make it as a footballer. However, when he was 14, he received growth hormone treatment and eventually grew to a height of 5ft 7in (170cm).

14) He is two inches (five centimetres) shorter than the typical American male, and nearly two feet shorter than former Miami Heat centre Manute Bol (7ft 6in).

15) Messi is one of a handful of players to win the Treble twice. He won La Liga, the Spanish Cup and the Champions League in the 2008-09 season with Barcelona and then did so again in the 2014-15 season. He scored 38 goals in the first of those campaigns and then 58 in the second.

16) Messi has won an Olympic gold medal. The Argentinian helped his country win the men's football tournament in Beijing in 2008 by scoring two goals and started in the final as the South Americans beat Nigeria 1-0. Angel Di Maria, who along with Messi scored in the 2022 World Cup final, netted the only goal of the game. 

17) In total Messi has scored 57 hat-tricks during his career, 48 for Barcelona and nine for Argentina. His first came as a 19-year-old against Real Madrid in a 3-3 draw in La Liga in March 2007.

18) Messi accounts for 7.2 per cent of all the goals scored in Barcelona's entire history (672 out of 9,322). The club has existed for 124 years and the Argentinian only played for them for 17 of those. 

19) Despite scoring 807 goals in his career Messi has never found the net in the first minute of a match. He has scored goals between the second minute and the 90th but is still waiting for one inside the first 60 seconds.

20) Messi was sent off on his debut for Argentina. In August 2005, as an 18-year-old, he was shown a red card two minutes after coming off the bench against Hungary for elbowing Vilmos Vanczak. In total he has been dismissed three times in his career (once for Barcelona and twice for Argentina).

21) In his club career Messi has won 38 trophies (35 at Barcelona and three at Paris Saint-Germain). This works out as a trophy for every 22 games played on average.

22) The most goals Messi has scored in a game is five. He has done this twice — for Barcelona against Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League in March 2012 and for Argentina against Estonia in a friendly in June 2022. 

23) Messi's triumph over France in the World Cup final last December was his 26th World Cup match, breaking Lothar Matthaus' record of 25 for West Germany and Germany.

24) Messi's appearance in Qatar marked his fifth World Cup appearance, tying him with Mexican quartet Antonio Carbajal, Rafael Marquez, and Andres Guardado, Matthaus, and Portugal's Ronaldo. 

25) Messi will play his 14th competitive match in the United States of America in his first game for Inter Miami. All of the previous 13 have been for Argentina, most notably the 2016 Copa America final in New Jersey, which his team lost on penalties to Chile. Messi's penalty kick was missed.

26) During his international career, the Argentine has scored against 37 different countries. Bolivia is the country against whom he has found the net the most times, with eight. 

27) Messi has played 175 times for Argentina, a national and South American record. He is tied for tenth on the list of male players with the most international appearances.

28) The club he has scored against most often during his career are Spanish side Sevilla with 38. 

29) Messi hasn't always worn the famous No 10 shirt for his country. He has played in both the No 18 and No 19 jersey for Argentina. His last international appearance not wearing No 10 was a friendly against France in February 2009 as No 18.

30) Messi has scored 27 goals against English clubs in the Champions League — seven more than any other player. The English side he has scored against the most is Arsenal with nine. 

31) He has scored 62 free-kicks during his career (50 for Barcelona, two for PSG and 10 for Argentina).

32) Messi has played in more Copa America (South American national championship) games than anyone else. Only Sergio Livingstone, Chile's custodian in the 1940s and 1950s, has made as many appearances in six tournaments as he has.

33)In the 2010s, Messi nearly outscored English team Sunderland. During the decade, the North East club lasted eight seasons in the Premier League before being relegated twice.

34) The most number of club games Messi has scored in consecutively is 10, achieved in the 2012-13 season when he was 25 years old.

35) The most number of consecutive club games Messi has gone without scoring is 12 in the 2006-07 season at the age of 19. He broke that barren run in spectacular style by scoring a hat-trick against Real Madrid.

36) Messi has the most liked Instagram post ever, with his celebratory photo after winning the 2022 World Cup getting over 75.6 million likes to date. It has 15 million more likes than the second most popular Instagram post, which is a photo of an egg. 

Source: The Athletic