Video: Watch Lionel Messi break records last night, probably not for the last time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30x3Rwu7bmA

We’re running out of superlatives to describe Lionel Messi, who last night officially became Barcelona’s all-time leading goalscorer with a hat-trick against Granada.

The Argentine genius overtook a record held by Cesar Rodriguez that had previously stood for 57 years, with his total now standing at 234 goals in 314 games. The most frightening part of all is that he’s only 24 and if he keeps going like this for the best part of the next decade, he could set records that nobody will ever be capable of touching.

Messi equalled Rodriguez’s debatable record (it had been chalked down from 235 shortly before the game) of 232 goals with his first of the night after 17 minutes when he rattled Cuenca’s cross in off the post and made it his own in the 68th minute with a finish which is fast becoming his trademark when he deftly lobbed the ball over the onrushing Granada ‘keeper into the net.

He wasn’t quite finished there, however, and in the 86th minute, Messi scored his eighth – that’s right, his eighth – hat-trick of the season after rounding Cesar and slamming the ball into the roof of the net.

The Nou Camp were quick to acclaim their golden boy and why wouldn’t they. Messi has now scored 54 goals this season and there are still two months left for God’s sake.

Some have suggested that Messi has a long way to go before he breaks the unofficial Barcelona goalscoring record held by Paulino Alcántara, who scored 369 goals in 357 matches for the Catalan giants but retired before they entered La Liga in 1929.

There’s no real point getting too bothered about that debate though is there? It seems inevitable that Messi will break that record at some stage and if he keeps going at the rate he is at the moment, it’s going to be sooner rather than later.

Bow down and appreciate the genius of the little man by watching his record breaking heroics from last night in the video above