Lionel Messi has quite a number of excellent Champions League performances to pick from but two stand out, because they both got a perfect 10/10 rating in L'Equipe.
The French newspaper has become synonymous over the years with its post match player ratings and the fact they are deemed as being pretty harsh.
To prove a point only 12 performances have been deemed worth of a 10/10 rating, and only Lionel Messi in on the list twice, who else.
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L'Équipe handed out its first perfect rating to former Sochaux ace Franck Sauzée in 1988, and only six players, including the five time Ballon d'Or winner, have received the rating in the post-2000.
The first came in 2010 when Messi single-handedly blitzed Arsenal in the Champions League, scoring four goals and promoting Arsene Wenger to describe him as "a PlayStation player".
It was a Champions League quarter final and the Gunners went into the game at the Camp Nou after a 2-2 draw in the first leg.
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Nicklas Bendtner put the visitors in front on the night, and on aggregate, but Messi then went on a tear, scoring three goal before half time.
The Argentine forward gave Arsene Wenger's side a bit of a break but made it 4-1 on the night with just two minutes of the game to go.
Just two years later Barca's leading scorer of all time went one better with five goals in a game in Europe's elite club competition.
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This time his 10/10 performance came in the last 16 against Bayer Leverkusen and again it was in a second leg. The La Liga side won the first leg 3-1 in Germany and at home he put the tie to bed with two goals in the first half.
Things went really crazy in the second half as he bagged a hat-trick in the second 45 minutes alone and Cristian Tello scored a brace, with Karim Bellarabi getting a consolation, in a 7-1 win.
On Wednesday morning Serge Gnabry became the most recent player to be added to the list after his four goals in the second half of Bayern Munich's 7-2 win against Spurs in the Champions League.
Can Messi complete a hat-trick of L'Equipe perfect performances?
Topics: Football News, Barcelona, Bayer Leverkusen, Lionel Messi, Ajax, Dusan Tadic, Arsenal, Champions League
