In the end for Leo Messi it was just a big scare, the injury the other night during the last minutes of Barcelona-Benfica fortunately turned out to be much less serious than expected, even if we have to wait for the magnetic resonance. The Argentine champion had feared the worst and thought he would have to stay away from the playing fields for some time, instead the very strong pain in his knee should be nothing more than a bad blow to the thigh, which could keep him out on Sunday for the next match in La Liga .
A sigh of relief, therefore, for La Pulce, and the hunt is still open for the record of goals scored in a calendar year by Gerd Muller, who in 1972 scored 85 between Bayern Munich and the German national team: Messi is only one goal behind and, due to injury permitting, they still have three league games to go to surpass that mark by the end of the year. Yesterday the Blaugrana number ten first thanked all the fans and football enthusiasts who wanted to make sure of his condition with many messages of affection and encouragement, while, regarding Muller's record, he said: "For me it is an important record, but not an obsession. If it happens, fine… Now that I'm close, I'll try. Of course, if I manage to beat this record, I hope it will last for a long time as happened for Muller”.
But the other night's episode reminded many fans of the serious knee injury that happened to Filippo Inzaghi on 10 November 2010, during the championship match won by his Milan 3-1 against Palermo, just a week after Super Pippo had managed to become the best scorer ever in European cups with 70 goals, surpassing Gerd Muller himself at 69, thanks to a brace in the Champions League against Real Madrid. For Inzaghi it was a crusader and meniscus injury and he had to stay away from the fields for several months, fortunately Messi's problem, after the initial bad sensations, in the end proved to be of little importance, but many were already ready to talk of a kind of Muller curse.
For the record, then, in the ranking of the best European scorers, Raul eventually won, in fact the former Real bomber thanks to the last two years with the Schalke shirt managed to settle in first place with 76 goals, but even in this special ranking it will be necessary to deal with Messi, for now stuck at 57 centers but with many years still ahead.
Gerhard Muller, known as Gerd, is now a sports manager and coaches at youth level, but during his competitive career he was one of the most prolific strikers in the history of football, renamed for this at home "Bomber der Nation" (the national scorer) , who in his 15 years with Bayern Munich, from 1964 to 1979, won everything that could be won at national and international level, obtaining a series of individual honors and setting several personal bests. In fact, in his bulletin board he can boast 3 European Cups, 1 Intercontinental Cup and numerous other national trophies conquered with Bayern, with the German national team he was instead World Champion in 1974 and European Champion in 1972. As for his score personal, he graduated 7 times top scorer in the Bundesliga, as well as being the top scorer in 4 editions of the Champions Cup, in a World Cup and in a European Championship, winning the Golden Boot twice and obtaining the Ballon d' gold in 1970.
This dazzling finisher has set a number of goalscoring records over the years, some that still hold today and are likely to last perhaps forever, while others are being established by this latest generation of strikers, with Messi as the number one threat. Where the former Bayern striker seems unattainable is in the number of goals scored in the Bundesliga, a good 365, with his pursuers very far behind, while for the German national team Muller is in the lead with 68 goals in 62 appearances, but by only one goal in the distance is Miroslav Klose, the striker of Lazio and also a former Bayern player, destined in all likelihood to take the scepter, also given the goals that the German team regularly foists on their current opponents.
A record that Leo Messi has already stolen from Gerd Muller is that of the number of goals in a season (established in '72-'73 with 67 goals), a record that after almost 40 years the Argentine talent has achieved by scoring even for 73 times last season. Now Messi is very close to taking possession of the record for goals in a calendar year, this mishap and the coach's choice not to field him a couple of weeks ago in the Copa del Rey in the return match against Alaves (where Leo he could have scored more than once) seem to have been the last obstacles before the big goal, to be celebrated in January with the probable umpteenth Ballon d'Or.
