Lionel Messi has renewed his contract with Inter Miami, signing a deal that will see him play until 2028, when he will be 41 years old, thus joining a select group of champions who have played on the field past the age of 40, such as Ibrahimovic, Totti, Maldini, Zanetti, Buffon, and Zoff.
So, two more seasons are available for the Flea to try to break even more records than those he can already boast of holding.
Let’s take a look at his chances of breaking some of these records.
1000 career goals?
Lionel Messi is currently the second-highest scorer in football history, behind Cristiano Ronaldo. There are 60 goals separating the two GOATs, but with CR7 still scoring, overtaking him seems difficult.
Reaching four digits in career goals isn’t easy either: Messi stands at 889. This means he needs 111 more goals to reach a thousand career goals.
It’s not an easy feat, considering it took him 144 matches and a period of three years and one month to score his last 111 goals. This is also taking into account a possible retirement from the Argentine national team after the World Cup in the United States.
The king of free kicks?
Lionel Messi is one of the most prolific free-kick scorers ever, but he can’t claim to be the best set-piece taker in history.
According to most sources, the player who has scored the most free kicks is Juninho Pernambucano, with an impressive 77 goals from set pieces.
Lionel Messi, on the other hand, has scored 69 free-kick goals: so he needs 8 more to equal Juninho and 9 to claim the record outright. His last 9 free kicks were scored over a period of 2 years and 8 months: in short, it’s still an ambitious goal, but not entirely impossible.
500 career assists?
It seems much more difficult for Messi to reach 500 career assists: currently, the Flea stands at 399.
This means he needs another 101 assists to reach that number: it took him over 5 years to make his last 101, much longer than his new contract will last.
In short, there doesn’t seem to be much hope for this one.
200 goal contributions for Argentina
Messi has contributed to 174 goals for Argentina, either by scoring or assisting. To reach 200, he needs to contribute to at least 26 more goals.
This is a goal that is not impossible to achieve by 2028, but Messi will probably have to reach it in a much shorter time, since he is expected to retire from the Albiceleste national team after the 2026 World Cup.
In this case, the goal could become really difficult for the Flea to achieve, unless he strings together a dozen incredible performances.
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇮🇹 here.
📸 Johnnie Izquierdo – 2025 Getty Images
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