
On January 13, 2019, Lionel Messi achieved a historic feat while playing for Barcelona in the La Liga. During Barcelona’s 3-0 win over Elbar at Camp Nou Stadium, Messi scored a goal in the 53rd minutes of the game. With this, Messi achieved the milestone of scoring 400 goals in his La Liga career, becoming the first player to reach this number in the history of the league.
As of now, Lionel Messi is the all-time highest goal-scorer in the La Liga with 474 goals in 520 appearances for Barcelona, while his former Real Madrid rival Cristiano Ronaldo comes second in the list with 311 goals in 292 appearances for the Madrid. “He is from another galaxy,” Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde also heaped praise on their star forward from Argentina for achieving the historic feat in the La Liga. “They are incredible numbers. But he does much more than score goals, he also does so much to generate scoring chances for others,” Valvarde was quoted as saying by Indian Express.
Lionel Messi became first player to score 400 goals in La Liga
Lionel Messi is currently the only player in the history of the La Liga to achieve the milestone of 400 goals and more. In his 17-year stint with Barcelona, Messi scored 474 goals in 520 appearances. In these 17 years, Messi won 34 trophies with Barcelona, along with 10 La Liga titles.
Lionel Messi also expressed his excitement after becoming the first player to amass 400 La Liga goals. “I'm proud to have reached 400 goals and I hope I can get some more,” Messi said as quoted in Bein Sports. I don't focus much on the records or numbers, I prefer to focus on the day-to-day. More than just scoring goals, I think of each game as a challenge where we have to go to win to add three points and fight for LaLiga, the tournament that rewards the most consistent team,” he further said.