Messi, Ronaldo, Mbappe: Stars have registered 4+ goal contributions in most games
Messi hits 4 for Miami
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It’s almost impossible to find new superlatives to describe the phenomenal Lionel Messi as he continues to excel during the twilight years of his career. The Barcelona legend waved goodbye to the major European leagues in 2023 to embark on a new challenge with Inter Miami. Granted the MLS isn’t the highest standard of football and a far cry from the illustrious Champions League games that Messi used to dominate but his numbers are still excellent.
The 38-year-old has provided an extraordinary 118 goal contributions in 86 games for the MLS club with 77 goals and 41 assists. Messi inspired Miami to an emphatic 4-0 win over Cincinnati on Sunday to set up a semi-final clash against New York City in the MLS Cup. The Miami captain opened the scoring before providing three assists to his gleeful teammates. It was the 39th time in Messi’s career that he’d provided four or more assists in a single game at club level and that is a record.
Top players with four or more goal contributions in a game
Transfermarkt has extracted the data from players at top division league clubs, across all competitions, and Messi ranks top. The legendary attacker has provided four or more goal contributions at all three clubs that he’s played for – Barcelona, PSG and Inter Miami. Cristiano Ronaldo ranks second, achieving this feat 31 times across 1,066 club games at five clubs – Manchester United, Juventus, Real Madrid, Sporting CP and Al-Nassr.
As the graphic above highlights, only two other players have provided four or more goal contributions in more than 20 games, Luis Suárez and Neymar. Incredibly, Suarez managed this at eight clubs across his career, which highlights his longevity. Several famous names feature in the top ten list including Robert Lewandowski, Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappé.
