Messi against Italian teams

Although the Italian league has some reputation for being the most defensive league (it's actually La Liga, this is why), Messi doesn't have problems playing against them either. This is today's entry topic, so without further ado, let's look at his performances against Italian teams.

Overall, he has 14 goals and 5 assists in 27 games against Italian teams, an average of 0.7 G/A per game. Not bad at all, and he has some good G/A-less performances against those teams as well.

His favorite victim from Italy is AC Milan, who he has scored 8 goals and made 2 assists against in 8 games. He only has 1 loss against them and he has kicked them out in both the 2011/12 UCL QF and the 2012/13 UCL R16. Juve isn't far behind either, having scored 3 goals and made 1 assist in 7 games. He's had memorable moments against them, like his MVP performance in the 2005 Joan Gamper or 10 years later when he was MoTM against them in the UCL final.

Then comes Roma, with 2 goals and an assist in 4 games. He was the best player on the pitch in 3/4 games and one of the best in his last game where they got kicked out of the UCL. Against Napoli, he scored a brace and assisted a goal in Barcelona's 5-0 win over them in the 2011 Joan Gamper, and more importantly, kicked them out of the 2019/20 UCL with a MoTM performance in the second leg, winning a pen, scoring a goal and getting another one wrongfully disallowed.

Inter Milan seems to be his boogyman as he hasn't been able to score against them in 4 games, though he does have 1 assist against them. And to be fair around 5 penalties weren't given in the 2009/10 UCL semi-final tie. Also, he was the MoTM in the second leg and in the home game against them in the 2019/20 UCL group phase as well. Finally, there is Udinese, who Messi only played against once in the 2005/06 UCL season but still left his mark as he won the foul for the first goal and won the ball for the second goal.

As we can see, Messi has no problem against Italian teams, so if he was to go to Serie A, as Ronaldo once hinted back in 2018, he probably would still dominate as he always does, perhaps even more easily considering it's less intense than La Liga (already mentioned).