In the seventh minute of Inter Miami’s Concacaf Champions Cup match against Nashville SC, Lionel Messi fired home through the legs of a defender, a precise finish to bring up his 900th career goal.
For the footballer who has made all the arguments he can to be crowned as the greatest of all time added another feather to his cap, and joins an elite list of players with 900 goals.
Goals will never manage to tell the full story of what makes Lionel Messi who he is – but his production and ability to make a difference ensures there can be no detractors for the magic he produced on the field. Here are all the numbers behind the Argentinian wizard’s remarkable achievements.
Messi second member of 900 club behind Ronaldo
While some lists have differing stats over the history of football, most official accounts of professional goalscoring have two names at the top, and it’s the two names you would expect. Cristiano Ronaldo leads with 965 goals and counting in his career, but Messi joins him in that club – springing clear of the 800s.
900 goals broken down
The numbers are astounding, and a little difficult to really wrap one’s head around. Messi got his career started with a goal for FC Barcelona in May 2005, and this would be the first of his 672 goals for the Catalan giants. 672 goals spread across 17 seasons in Barcelona, a man synonymous with the club, with the city, and eventually, with football, as he racked up award after award and trophy after trophy.
His was a heartbreaking departure when he joined Paris Saint-Germain in 2021 for a brief spell, one that lasted just two years in France. But Messi came good even in that period, in his maturity, striking 32 goals for the French giants.
Messi would, on many levels, complete his career and put the final tick mark during that spell in France, but it would come on the international stage, as he led Argentina to the FIFA World Cup in 2022, finally getting his hands on that famous trophy. It took him a while, and plenty of work – 115 goals’ worth, the kind of contribution you need to even hold a conversation with Diego Maradona for the football-crazed Albiceleste fans.
13 of those goals have come at the World Cup; three short of Miroslav Klose’s record of 16, the 2026 finals in North America gives him a chance to hunt down more history.
Messi’s latest step in his long career, and what most expect to be his final step, has delivered him to Florida. For Inter Miami, Messi has not slowed down his production at all – in his tenure for the Herons, finding the back of the net 81 times.
How did Messi score his goals?
Of his 900 career goals, there is no surprise in the vast majority coming via that left foot that was blessed by football god. 756 footballs have found their way home off that left foot – of these, 112 from the penalty spot, and 70 from free-kicks.
A further 110 were scored from his weaker right foot, and 30 with headers. The remaining four bundled in via miscellaneous parts of his body.
Who were Messi’s favourite opponents?
Given he scored 474 goals in Spain’s La Liga alone, there’s no surprise to Messi’s most prolific teams to score against being Spanish. But it’s not a bad list – Sevilla have been a top tier team during Messi’s career, and he has found the net against them 38 times, six more than second-place.
Barcelona’s great rivals, Real Madrid? Tied fifth with 26 goals against.
Messi at his most prolific
Between 2009 and 2019, Lionel Messi was at his goal-scoring zenith. In each of those 11 seasons, he scored at least 40 goals per calendar year; in nine of those eleven, he scored at least fifty. The most famous year was the famous 2012 effort, where he ran away with 91 goals across all competitions. Frankly, the maths behind Messi’s 2012 simply don’t make sense. Pencil it down as a miracle year from a miraculous player.