MILESTONE: Lionel Messi on 299 goals in senior career

FOOTBALL - Lionel Messi and FC Barcelona take on Celtic in the Champions League on Tuesday, 23 October, and the Argentine ace is one goal away from scoring the 300th of his senior career. As the milestone approaches, we are putting the 299 he has already recorded in perspective.

> Messi has scored his 299 senior goals in 416 matches.

> Messi scored his first senior goal on 1 May 2005, netting for FC Barcelona in a 2-0 La Liga win against Albacete.

> Messi has netted 268 times for FC Barcelona, in the following competitions: La Liga (180), Champions League (53), Copa del Rey (20), Supercopa de España (10), FIFA Club World Cup (4) and European Super Cup (1).

> He has scored 31 times for Argentina in the following competitions: friendlies (17), World Cup qualifiers (11), Copa América (2) and FIFA World Cup (1).

> The opponents Messi has scored most often against are Atlético Madrid, a side he has netted 18 times against.

> The goalkeeper he has scored most often against is Iker Casillas, beating him 18 times (17 times facing Real Madrid and one time facing Spain).

> Goals by calendar year: 2005 (3), 2006 (12), 2007 (31), 2008 (22), 2009 (41), 2010 (60), 2011 (59), 2012 (71).

> His favourite minutes to score in are the 80th and 81st minutes, having scored nine times in each.

> There are 79 matches in his senior career in which Messi has netted at least twice, 23 matches in which he has netted at least three times, four matches in which he has scored at least four times and he has scored five times once (in the Champions League against Bayer Leverkusen on 7 March 2012).