10 Records That Lionel Messi Has Yet to Break

Lionel Messi is no stranger to breaking records, but the Argentinean superstar reached two significant landmarks this week.

Saturday, he became La Liga's all-time top scorer thanks to a hat-trick against Seville, while he became the most prolific man in European Cup history Tuesday with a hat-trick against APOEL. 

While the Barcelona star may have smashed more records than a bull in HMV, there are still several milestones that he has yet to reach. Here are 10 of them.

Messi may be La Liga's all-time top scorer with 253 goals, but many other players across Europe bettered this tally with a single club. 

Fernando Gomes scored 288 for Porto, Eusebio managed 319 at Benfica, and Gerd Muller found the net 365 times in league play for Bayern Munich.

The European record, however, lies with Hamburg legend Uwe Seeler, who bagged 404 goals in 476 games (link in German). 

At Messi's current rate of 0.88 goals per league game, he would need to play another 131 league games with Barcelona to match Seeler's tally. At just 27 years old, this is quite possible. 

Messi's hat-trick against APOEL on Tuesday was his 28th for Barcelona. This equalled the tally achieved by Alfredo Di Stefano at Real Madrid and puts him three behind Telmo Zarra. 

Of those 28 hat-tricks, 20 were scored in La Liga. Di Stefano, Zarra and Cristiano Ronaldo all have 22.

Therefore, with another three hat-tricks, Messi will equal the record for Spanish players and break the La Liga record. 

Messi has managed 45 goals for Argentina in 96 outings. He passed Diego Maradona's record of 34 last year.

However, the Albiceleste's all-time top scorer is Gabriel Batistuta, who scored an impressive 56 goals in 78 games. 

With 11 goals required to close the gap, it seems likely that Messi will become Argentina's all-time top scorer. 

Messi may have overtaken Raul as the all-time European Cup top scorer, but he still lags behind the Real Madrid legend in terms of goals scored in all European competitions.

Raul's tally stands at 76, while Messi has 75, and Ronaldo is close by with 73 (as per @MessiStats). 

Messi has won the Spanish Cup twice and scored 29 goals in the competition. Athletic Club legend Zarra, however, won it five times and scored an incredible 81 goals in the tournament during his career. 

At age 27, it seems unlikely that the Argentinean will manage another 52 goals in the King's Cup to equal the record. 

Messi is in his 20s, so it is quite understandable that he is not yet troubling the leaderboard for the most La Liga appearances at a single club in Spain. He has made 289 appearances over 11 seasons.

His teammate Xavi has made 483 appearances for Barcelona, and Iker Casillas has turned out 488 times for Real Madrid. But the record stands with Raul, who played 550 games for Los Blancos over 16 seasons.

Based on Messi's average of 33.6 appearances per season over the last five seasons, he would need to play a further seven seasons in Catalunya to match the record. 

Messi has won six La Liga titles with the Blaugrana, putting him on equal measure with his former manager Pep Guardiola and Andres Iniesta.

Xavi has won the most league titles of any Barcelona player with seven. 

Messi has won the Pichichi—La Liga's award for the top goalscorer of the season—on three occasions (2009–10, 2011–12 and 2012–13).

Ferenc Puskas won it four times, and Alfredo Di Stefano received the honour five times, but Zarra earned it a record six times. 

So, Messi will need to double his Pichichi collection to equal the Athletic Club legend. 

Mr. Messi has been the Champions League top goalscorer on four different occasions (2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012). His finest European Cup season was 2011-12, when he managed 15 goals in 12 appearances.

This record, however, was surpassed by his contemporary Cristiano Ronaldo last season. He managed 17 goals in just 11 appearances. 

Messi has seven Champions League goals already this season—four more than Ronaldo—so he has a maximum of eight games remaining to score 11 goals and take the record. 

Messi broke goalscoring records in 2011-12 when he scored the highest number of La Liga goals in a single season (50) and the most goals scored for a European club in one season in all competitions (73). 

His record of 50 league goals may be unmatched in Spain, but it has been bettered elsewhere on the continent. 

Dixie Dean managed 60 league goals for Everton in 1927-28, but the record is held by Ferenc Deak, who scored a whopping 66 goals for Hungarian side Szentlorinci in 1945-46. 

Messi would need to average 1.74 goals per game to match that record. This season, he is currently averaging 0.83, while Ronaldo is averaging 1.82 per game. 

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