Lionel Messi: Barcelona Star Destined for All-Time Greatness with Scoring Mark

We won't know with any certainty whether Lionel Messi truly deserves consideration amongst (much less above) the likes of Pele and Diego Maradona in the annals of football history, until the Barcelona star hangs up his cleats and calls it a career.

At this point, though, there's no denying that Messi is well on his way to joining that most celebrated of inner circles if he's able to remain fit and play for as long as Pele and Maradona did in their heydays.

Messi made that much clear with his feet on Saturday, when he accounted for all four of the Blaugrana's goals in a win over Espanyol to move his total on the season to 72, setting a new all-time world record.

The most prolific campaign in the history of the world's most popular sport.

At the tender age of 24.

This, during a season in which he became Barca's most celebrated goal scorer, and just days after he broke the European club football mark for single-season net finding.

Granted, it helps Messi's case tremendously that Barca went so deep in so many different competitions, from La Liga and the Champions League to the Copa del Rey and the FIFA Club World Cup.

That being said, let's not downplay how remarkable Messi's latest achievement is and the brilliant efforts that brought him to this point. Saturday's performance marked the 22nd time that he'd netted multiple goals in a game this season, the 10th time he'd registered a hat trick and the third time he'd accounted for a quadruple.

That includes the five-goal outburst he put on Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League, and doesn't include an accurate account of all the times Ray Hudson had to replace his pants while or after calling a Barca match.

Messi's detractors (particularly Pele) will point to lack of a World Cup title on a resume that already includes 18 pieces of club silverware, three consecutive World Player of the Year honors and a host of other awards with which one could populate a sizable shrine. They might also note that he still has a long way to go before he can even hope to overtake Pele in the history books.

These are both valid points, though they ignore two notions, in particular, that may ultimately work in Messi's favor:

1. He's still all of 24, with his 25th birthday approaching in late June. Pele played professionally until he was 37, as did Maradona. Messi doesn't figure to score 60 or 70 goals every year, but if he plays as long as those two did and is able to average, say, 30 goals per year across all competitions over the next 13, he'll easily outpace Pele's all-time record of 541 goals scored in football's top divisions, according to IFFHS.

And, along the same lines, Messi's youth will afford him at least two or three more opportunities (if not more) in which to shine at the World Cup and, perhaps, bring that most coveted trophy back to Argentina.

2. More importantly, Messi's accomplishments thus far and from here on out have and will come against much more rigorous competition than any of football's most venerable pillars ever faced. The globalization of football, along with ever-improving training techniques and fitness regimens, has made the sport more competitive at all levels and improved the overall quality of play rather dramatically from the days of yore.

Pele never set foot in Europe as a club player, spending the bulk of his career with Santos in his home country of Brazil. Maradona made a name for himself on the continent, most notably with Napoli, but still never faced the consistent quality of competition with which Messi is so often made to compete.

That same fact extends to the World Cup, wherein there are so many squads loaded with elite talent that even Brazil and Argentina are hardly guaranteed a shot at the title. 

Of course, this argument works both ways. While Messi is met with tougher opposition, he also happens to be surrounded with more gifted players on a more consistent basis than were his predecessors.

For the most part, anyway.

Ultimately, there's no point in attempting to measure Messi against the greats just yet. It's cause for lively and entertaining discussion, and Messi's current pre-eminence in the football world grants it some measure of justification, but no one will be able to draw out accurate comparisons until his career is nearer completion.

Still, given how young Messi is and how much he's accomplished already, it's tempting not to speculate; to project that given X, Y and Z, Leo can/will rank here or there in the pantheon of pitch protagonists.

Because 72 is a massive number, one with which even King Leo isn't yet finished.

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