16 years ago today, Lionel Andres Messi scored his first goal in the famous red and blue 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 scooped through ball from Ronaldinho. 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.
This time the linesman kept his flag down and the kid from Rosario was off the mark for the Blaugrana.
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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 667 goals for Barcelona.
This season, Messi started the campaign slowly and didn't notch in open play until November.
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But after the transfer request saga over the summer, the six-time Ballon d'Or winner soon discovered his magic touch and he's been his usual unplayable self.
In 31 games in La Liga, he's scored 26 goals and registered 21 assists - with the vast majority of his goal contributions coming in a sublime 2021.
Today, May 1, also marks two years since Messi scored one of the greatest free-kicks in football history against Liverpool in the Champions League semi-final first leg at the Nou Camp.
Topics: Ronaldinho, Football, Barcelona, Lionel Messi
