Exactly 14 years ago today, a fella called Lionel Andres Messi scored his first goal in the famous blue and red colours of Barcelona.
On 1 May 2005, a 17-year old Messi, with his long locks and babyface, replaced Samuel Eto'o in the La Liga fixture against Albacete and went on to become the club's youngest ever goalscorer.
Messi soon had the ball in the back of the net after entering the fray later on having been fed through by a typically filthy Ronaldinho scooped through ball. However, the goal was incorrectly chalked off.
But Messi did not dwell on it in the slightest. Moments later, Messi scored pretty much the exact same goal, again assisted by R10, Barca's talisman.
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This time the linesman's flag stayed down and the kid from Rosario was off the mark for the Blaugrana.
It was a proper 'passing of the torch' moment - and it's fair to say that Messi has carried that torch with distinction and surpassed Ronaldinho, who openly admitted that the Argentine would go on to be surpass him.
After opening his account with a glorious lob, Messi has gone on to score a further 598 goals in Blaugrana colours and is closing in on his 600th strike for the club.
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Remarkably, the current campaign has seen the five-time Ballon d'Or winner start just 38 out of 54 games - his lowest tally of appearances since 2008/09 - and yet he's still comfortably outscored everyone else.
Just the 46 goals and 16 assists for Messi on the whole and with at least six games remaining, there's still plenty of opportunities for him to add to his tally in all competitions - starting with tonight's Champions League semi-final first leg against Liverpool.
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Football News, Ronaldinho, FC Barcelona, Football, Lionel Messi, Barcelona news, Messi goal, Spanish football, La Liga
