El Clasico: 4 incredible stats that show that Lionel Messi is the King of the fixture

#1 Most Goals (26)

Just the fact that Messi has left everyone behind in the number of goals scored in this fixture confirms the Argentinean's impact on El Clásico. The great Alfredo Di Stefano scored 18, as did Cristiano Ronaldo, but both are on the second spot as Lionel Messi has 26 El Clásico goals to his name so far, in 38 games.

The only current player close to him, apart of Ronaldo who is playing in Serie A now, is Real Madrid's Karim Benzema, who is on 8 goals. Messi started his goalscoring form in El Clásico with a hattrick against Real Madrid in March 2007.

Ruud Van Nistelrooy opened the scoring in just the 4th minute at the Nou Camp in March 2007. Messi responded 6 minutes later, levelling the scores. However, 2 minutes later, Guti was brought down in the penalty area and Nistelrooy slammed home the resulting penalty. Real had the lead again.

In the 28th minute, Messi equalized again, making the score 2-2 now. By the end of the first half, Barcelona centre-back Oleguer picked up his second yellow and got his marching order. With a man advantage, Madrid scored through a Sergio Ramos header in the 73rd minute.

Yet Lionel Messi refused to be defeated on the night and scored the goal of the game in the 90th minute, levelling the scores 3-3 and registering the first hattrick of his career in an El Clásico. He would go on to score one more hattrick and a total of 26 goals till date in this fixture.

Lionel Messi will not add to his tally in the first El Clásico of the season, but one can safely assume that the Argentinean maestro will light up this fixture again in the near future.

All the stats go on to show that no other player in the history of the fixture has influenced El Clásico as much as Lionel Messi which truly makes him the King of El Clásico.

Stat courtesy: BBC & Goal

About the author

Deepungsu is a veteran football journalist who has been covering daily transfer roundups and news for over six years at Sportskeeda. He has written close to 9000 articles for the website, and has garnered over 19.5Million reads.

Deepungsu holds a PG degree in Microbiology and an MBA degree in Total Quality Management. He has an extensive two-decade long writing experience, which includes a decade of sports blogging. His writing prowess has even led his work getting cited on the legendary Franz Beckenbauer's Wikipedia page.

Inspired by Diego Maradona, Deepungsu played as an attacking midfielder for his local club at subdivision level in his initial years and scored an important goal or two. However, his all-time favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and evidently, he feels Argentina's glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment for fulfilling his long-standing dream. He is also an ardent East Bengal fan.

Deepungsu has been a Manchester United supporter since the year 2000. Unsurprisingly, his favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson and the Scotsman helped him get through some of the toughest days of his life. Like the fiery Scot, Deepungsu also leaves no stone unturned when it comes to accuracy in articles and only relies on credible sources.

Despite believing in Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland to create an iconic rivalry, Deepungsu reckons no one can match the longevity of Messi and Ronaldo. He spends his leisure time writing about life on his blog, reading books, and playing the guitar.

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Edited by Sagnik Mallick