6 Guinness World Records held by Lionel Messi that you didn't know about

#1 Most Goals in a UEFA Champions League Match

Messi scored a hattrick in under 30 mins

On 7th March 2012, Bayern 04 Leverkusen travelled to Camp Nou to face Barcelona in the Champions League in the second leg of the round of sixteen. The Germans had lost the first leg 3-1 at home, but were high from their weekend win over Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga and were hoping for a miracle.

A miracle was destined, but unfortunately for them, they could only watch in awe, because the night belonged to Lionel Messi.

Early in the first half, Messi received a ball from Xavi and displayed a delightful lob over the onrushing goalkeeper to open the scoring. The Argentinean doubled the lead in the first half itself, with some cute dribbles and a low shot.

Messi completed his hattrick with a right-footed lob from a Fabregas pass and went on to score 2 more as Barcelona won the game 7-1.

Lionel Messi scored 5 goals on the night, the first player to do so. Luis Adriano has since equalled the record while playing for Shakhtar Donetsk against BATE Borisov in 2014.

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 Debjyoti Samanta