History was made last night.
Lionel Andrés Messi, in a game vs Albacete on May 1st, 2005, provided the world with a first glimpse of his raw, young genius in the making. He was brought on as a substitute by then manager Frank Rijkaard, taking the place of Samuel Eto'o at the death of the match. In those closing moments he managed to engineer two moments of magic, one wrongly ruled out, the other marking the beginning of an era.

371 goals later and the world is now fully accustomed, but possibly not quite yet aware in the grand scheme, of his unbelievable and unique talent. To mark the historic event, Lionel Messi helped his side thrash Osasuna 7-0, scoring a hat-trick himself to become Barcelona's all-time record goalscorer.

The previous record of 369 goals for FC Barcelona had stood for 87 years, and been held by Philippines-born striker Paulino Alcántara, who scored 142 official goals and 227 in friendly games in an era before the Spanish league had been formally established.

Messi’s latest treble took him to 371 goals, at just 26 years of age and in less than nine years as a first-team player. Within those goals are 21 hat-tricks, four ‘pokers’ (four goals in one match) and one time scoring five goals in a single game.

To put Messi's goalscoring feats into perspective, any striker or primary goalscorer who retired with a ratio near to one goal every two games throughout their career or during a period at a particular club was generally held to have been within an exclusive, elite bracket of footballers of the utmost quality. However, Messi's ratio is nearly half that overall, scoring almost a goal every game throughout his career so far.