The games Messi has played all around the world

With over 900 games played, it comes as no surprise that Messi has played in a lot of locations all around the world, which is what this entry is about. There hasn't been a continent Messi hasn't played on (excluding Antarctica of course).

Fortunately, we know everything about every location Messi has played in officially thanks to https://messi.starplayerstats.com/en/world. A total of 688 games of his 912 games have been in Spain, so 224 have been outside of Spain. That's a 75/25 % of games played inside and outside of Spain.

Only 36 games have been in Argentina, with an amazing 21 goals and 15 assists, quite the record. In Oceania, he's only played twice, which were a friendly against Australia back in 2007 and a Superclásico de las Américas friendly against Brazil in 2017.

Although a sort of short entry, it's still interesting to know in which places Messi has played all throughout his career.

Messi vs the referees part 3

Here we are once again with another part of Messi vs the referees. There's not much to say, so I'll get on with some more refereeing errors done against Messi.

The first one we'll see is his poorly annulled goal against Levante in the 2015/16 league season. As it can be seen in the video, Messi was clearly not offside, but the goal was still canceled. It was at the beginning of the game when they were tied 0-0, but they later won 2-0.

The next one is another goal wrongfully canceled against Levante, this time in the 2014/15 league season. Messi was once again clearly onside as it can be seen in the video.

The 3rd error we'll be seeing in this part came in the same season, this time against Elche in the Copa del Rey. In the video, it can be seen that he's onside. Thankfully, they passed the round and then went on to win the Copa del Rey.

Next up, there's his canceled goal against Albacete in the 2004/05 season, which would have been the first goal in his career. In the photo, it can be seen that he wasn't offside, but fortunately, he scored shortly after.

And last but not least, it's his canceled goal against Deportivo La Coruña in the 2014/15 season. It can be seen in the video that he wasn't offside. The game ended up in a 2-2 draw with 2 goals from Messi.

That is all for the 3rd part of this series. I hoped you liked it, and as always, I'll see you in the next blog.

Messi's tryout with River Plate

Considering his stay at Newell's over, Messi looked to sign for a new club. One of the big teams that was interested in him was River Plate, and in August of 2000, he made some tryouts with the team.

He was originally scouted by ex-River Plate defender Federico Vairo, who told some people in the club and that's where the interest came from. For three days, he played for River's "pre-novena", and from the beginning, he showed his magic to everyone.

On his first day in the tryouts, a Tuesday, he entered on a Universidad de Buenos Aires field, few meters away from the Monumental. At 3 PM, the first practice started, and at 3:45 PM, he was called in by Eduardo Abrahamian, the coach. It's said that in the first few minutes he entered, he dazzled everyone. He scored an astounding 16 goals in this training. At 5 PM, the coach called Messi's father and cited Messi for the next practice.

On Wednesday, he was cited for the practice at 2 PM, and the practice started at 3 PM. He once again dazzled everyone and was called for a practice on Friday at 5 PM.

Finally, on Friday, he entered the Monumental with his father and his friend Gimnénez. He was paired up with Gonzalo Higuaín for this training, who he later shared teams with once again years later on the national team. At 5 PM, the practice ended, and he returned to Rosario at 6 PM. His friend, Giménez, ended up signing for River Plate.

Despite some attempts by Vairo and Abrahamian to tell the higher-ups to sign Messi, neither Delem (a River Plate icon) nor the other higher-ups took much importance. Although the reasons for not signing him are still being debated, what's true is that he wasn't signed by River Plate, and he ended up signing for Barcelona a few months later.

When Messi was almost the TIME Person of the Year

After an amazing 2010/11 season, winning the Champions League and La Liga as well as being the best player in both tournaments, Messi received a staggering rise in popularity, so much so that he was one of the candidates of the 2011 TIME Person of the Year.

His entry in the voting talked about how he was the best player of his generation, his amazing season at Barcelona, his 200-goal milestone for Barcelona, and his importance to football by making it more commercially appealing and successful. These factors were enough to get him nominated.

In the end, Messi received 74.415 votes, around 15.7% of the total amount of votes, which got him second in the voting behind Erdoğan, Turkey's Prime Minister, with 122.934 votes. Not only that, but he had the best average in terms of popularity/unpopularity since Erdoğan received 180.564 votes as the most unpopular person according to TIME's readers. This means that he was both incredibly popular and very uncontroversial as well.

All in all, it was a very impressive achievement to see how far he got into the voting, which magnifies his legacy. I hope you liked this entry, and as always, I'll see you in the next blog.

Messi goals that would have been part 1

Even though Messi has over 700 goals in his career, with numerous of those goals being wonderful, there are still dozens of amazing goals that would have been for Messi. This is what this series will be about, so without further ado, let's look at them.

The 1st "would have been" goal we'll be seeing in this series happened at Camp Nou against Atlético Madrid in the 2008/09 season. He made a great run from the halfway line, going all the way to the box and chipping the goalkeeper, but the shot went just wide.

Next up is his recent game against Real Madrid at the Di Stéfano stadium. He shot straight from the corner and it almost went in, but as everyone looked in shock, the ball went to the crossbar and bounced off what would have been Messi's first Olympic goal.

Continuing with almost Olympics goals, Messi once again came close against Sevilla at home in the 2015-16 La Liga season. His shot went to the near post, but it hit the post and it bounced off to Suárez, who hit the bar and couldn't convert the chance either.

Now we go forward to the 2016-17 season, specifically in the Copa del Rey semi-finals against Atlético Madrid at home, where he shot a great free-kick but once again the crossbar denied his chance. That would have certainly been one of Messi's best free-kick goals.

And last but not least, there's his solo goal attempt against Athletic Club in the 2011-12 seasons, starting his run from behind the halfway line and going all the way to the box, but Iraizoz saved his shot, unfortunately.

That's all for the first part of this new series. I hope you liked this, and as always, I'll see you in the next blog.

Barcelona lose El Clásico and hurt their title chances

Yesterday, Barça unfortunately lost 2-1 against Real Madrid at the Di Stéfano stadium. Benzema and Kroos scored for Real Madrid, while Mingueza scored Barcelona's discount (which came from a good Messi pre-assist) which in the end wasn't enough to change the result of the game even after Messi hit the post trying an Olympic goal. Messi's stats were: 1 pre-assist, 2 SoT, 1 woodwork (7 in total), 0.62 xG, 7 dribbles, 2 key passes, 9 SCA, 0.83 xA, 10 ground duels won, 1 aerial duel won, 3 fouls won, 1 tackle, 1 interception, 5 ball recoveries, 7 pressures (1 successful), 2 crosses, 2 long balls, 59 passes, 99 touches. This won him the MoTM according to WhoScored and got him as high as a 9.86 rating from Infogol.

This game was crucial for Barça's title chances, and they blew the opportunity away. Still, the race is very contended between Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid, and Barcelona, with only 1 point between all 3 of them.

Messi still leads as the Pichichi and he hopefully wins the MVP as well (as he should). But now, the priority shifts to the Copa del Rey final which will be played next Saturday against Athletic Bilbao, hoping to get revenge from the Supercopa de España loss from January.

With this game, he also broke the record for most appearances in El Clásico, beating Ramos' 44 with a 45. Hopefully, Barça can put themselves together before the end of the season, but until then, I'll see you in the next blog.

When Messi does solo goals

Doing a solo goal is no easy task. It usually requires good dribbling abilities, which I previously detailed in Messi's case (in my "The best dribbler in history" entry and continuation), and also a relatively good speed and deacceleration to get close to the goal. But for Messi, there are many cases of him doing this, which I will detail below.

Some of his most popular solo goals are of course his run against Getafe in the 2006/07 Copa del Rey semi-finals, emulating Maradona, his solo goal against Athletic Bilbao in the 2014/15 Copa del Rey final, which I will expand on in a later entry, and his goal against Real Madrid in the 2010/11 UCL semi-finals.

But those are not his only solo goals by any means. A great video by Messi Magic™ shows 20 solo goals from Messi, an insane amount from any other footballer, but normal for the Argentine.

I hope you liked this entry, and as always, I'll see you in the next blog.