The Mexican Rafael Márquez clutches his head as if not believing what he is seeing from the substitute bench.
Dutch coach Frank Rijkaard smiles knowing that he entered history.
Carles Puyol, Ronaldinho and Giovanni van Bronckhorst lock up the
boy
who has just scored
his first goal as a professional
and they jump happily.
Albacete footballers do not quite believe what is happening, much less goalkeeper Raúl Valbuena, the first of many victims.
You don't see the 17-year-old boy who is
Lionel Andrés Messi
.
To the human mountain are added Andrés Iniesta, the Portuguese Deco and the Brazilian Beletti.
The Camp Nou delirious.
The sequence takes place on May 1, 2005 and nobody wants to miss the scene because the feeling is unmistakable:
something big is happening
.
The years passed, the titles arrived and the goals and celebrations multiplied.
Lionel Messi has just scored his 800th goal as a professional.
He did it in the ideal setting.
He couldn't have turned out better.
He did it with the Argentine National Team shirt, in a packed and passionate Monumental, in the great party of the world champions after having obtained the third star three months ago and a little bit in the World Cup in Qatar.
He did it after taking 6 free throws and hitting 2 on the posts.
It is not possible that he could have dreamed of so many goals when Ronaldinho invited him to take him on a piggyback ride on that distant night in May in Catalonia.
6,535 days passed.
There is no way to imagine 800 goals, there is no room for so much desire.
And yet, there is the Flea putting the ball into the goal for the 800th time. Most remarkable of all, he still hasn't gotten bored of doing it.
It is convenient to provide three pieces of information to measure what Messi has achieved with his 800 goal.
Ángel Amadeo Labruna
is the top scorer in Argentine soccer with 317 celebrations,
Alfredo Di Stéfano
was, until the irruption of Rosario, the Argentine with the most goals in history with 523 cries , and
Diego Armando Maradona
finished his glorious career with 352 goals, of course Pelusa did them in around 700 games and La Pulga has played 1,016.
5/1/2005.
Messi is carried on a litter by Ronaldinho, in the celebration of his first goal as a professional.
Photo: AFP PHOTOLLUIS GENE.
There are goals of all colors in Messi's career, of course.
It is possible that the most special are the two that he scored for France in the
World Cup final in Qatar
.
And of the National Team, it is known, he is the top scorer with 99 goals in 173 games.
In addition, he gave away 53 assists.
He scored the most goals with the
Barcelona
shirt .
Messi celebrated 672 times in 778 games and distributed 269 assists.
"I don't think about records: I just go out to play ball," Leo commented in 2013, when his last name began to be carved in the history books.
Messi celebrates his second goal against France, in the World Cup final.
Photo: REUTERS/Carl Recine.
In
Paris Saint Germain
, Leo put aside his facet as a lethal scorer to dress as a coach and assist the phenomenal
Kylian Mbappé
.
The same, the Rosario is a friend of the goal and against that there is nothing to do.
At PSG he now accumulates 29 celebrations and 31 ratings in 65 games.
Messi's career includes 2 re-pokers, 6 pokers, 49 hat-tricks and 151 braces.
Yes, a real bestiality
.
In addition, in recent days, Oscar Barnade, a journalist and statistician for
Clarín
, determined that Lionel, with his free-kick goal on the hour against Lille in the French league, had equaled Maradona in 61 free-kick celebrations outside the area.
Tonight, at the Monumental, magic was waiting for him, it happened: he nailed it in the angle in the final minute.
A more mature Messi, at PSG, and his usual custom.
Photo: NICOLAS TUCAT / AFP.
But, at what point did Messi stop being a skilled winger to become a serial goalscorer?
The date and occasion are remembered by all Rosario fans: May 2, 2009,
the night Pep Guardiola placed him as a false 9
to play against Real Madrid.
It happens that this would be the takeoff season for the Flea: he scored 38 goals.
In his first 4 seasons he had scored 42 goals.
His top campaign would be signed in 2011-2012, with 82 cries (73 in Barcelona and 9 with the National Team) in 69 games.
Guardiola sent him from 9 and made him a serial scorer.
Photo: AP Photo/Hassan Ammar.
These 800 goals that are celebrated in Núñez are the
official ones
.
But other records appear that further enlarge the legend of Leo.
He scored 14 goals in the Sub 20 and another 2 in the Sub 23. In addition, the world champion scored another 40 goals in friendlies between Barcelona and PSG.
More: in the lower ranks of the culé cast he scored 105 times.
A few years ago,
Miguel Martínez
, who knew how to be the press officer of the Rosario Football Association, inspected the sheets in which La Pulga appeared between 1994 and 1999 and came to the conclusion that he scored 234 goals in 176
games
.
Thus, if we add 379 unofficial to the 800, the figure would be
1,195
.
Messi was 27 of Cristiano Ronaldo's 827 goals, his next goal?
Photo: AFP PHOTO / Josep LAGO.
All of Messi's goals, the official ones and those that are not, have a common denominator:
Celia Olivera Cuccittini
, his maternal grandmother, who died in 1998. As is known, Leo dedicates each of his goals to him (raises both arms to heaven). to his
nonna
, who knew how to accompany him in his youth and for whom he felt and still feels a great weakness in his physical absence.
And there is no better way to close the note than by reproducing a dialogue that occurred between Messi and his son Thiago and that La Pulga recounted in December 2015.
-Dad, are you going for the goal again?- Thiago asked with his innocent 3 years.
-Yes son. Goal again - answered Messi, as if scoring goals were a mere formality.
Messi at Newell's, where it all began.
Photo: File.
look too
Argentina vs Panama: the brutal double kick to Lionel Messi that left him with blood on the knee
The applause meter of the Argentine National Team party: who were the most applauded after Messi?
Mateo Retegui made his debut with a goal in Italy and agreed with Mancini, although he could not avoid the defeat against England