Considered one of the best football players of his generation, Argentina’s Lionel Messi scored 47 goals for Barcelona in the 2009/10 season and more than 50 goals in the calendar year 2010.
Among his scoring feats in 2010 was a remarkable week in which he scored eight goals – three against Valencia, two in the Champions League against Stuttgart and three more against Zaragoza - to make him the first Barcelona player to score back-to-back hat-tricks in Spain’s La Liga. Unsurprisingly he was named La Liga Player of the Year for the second straight year.
In April he scored four goals for the first time, against Arsenal in the Champions League, although there was disappointment for Messi and Barcelona when they were tactically out-thought and beaten in the semi-final of the Champions League by Inter Milan.
His goalscoring successes continued in the 2010/11 season. In October and November, he scored in ten successive matches, including a friendly against Brazil, and he also scored his 50th goal in the calendar year of 2010.
