Lionel Messi, a scrawny kid turned away by River Plate in 2000 despite being described by one of the club’s youth coaches as a mixture of Omar Sivori and Diego Maradona, set a Barcelona scoring record of 234 goals at the age of only 24 on Tuesday. Barca’s faith in their ability to groom the little lad from Rosario for their first team and transform him into the world’s best player has paid off handsomely while River have been left to rue not making him theirs. Messi has already won 18 titles in his eight seasons in the Barca first team – three Champions Leagues, five La Ligas, one King’s Cup, two European Super Cups, five Spanish Super Cups and two Club World Cups. Three World Player of the Year awards in a row look like being followed by a fourth for 2012 – and it is only March. The Catalan club are through to the last eight of this season’s Champions League and will play the King’s Cup final against Athletic Bilbao in May though they are five points behind Real Madrid in La Liga with 10 matches left. Messi was once again at his majestic best on Tuesday and scored a sublime hat-trick in Barcelona’s 5-3 league win over Granada at the Nou Camp to cruise past Cesar Rodriguez on the club’s all-time scoring list. The diminutive forward, who has now netted 34 league goals and 54 in all competitions this season, needed 314 games to break the record, while Cesar scored his 232 goals in 354 official matches. “He (Messi) is sat at the same table as the best in history because he was won very important titles, because he has three Ballon d’Or awards and he will be the one who wins the most because being the player he is he can achieve a lot more,” Johan Cruyff was quoted as saying in the Barca’s latest club magazine. “Messi is by far the best player in the world,” added the Dutchman, who won European titles with Barcelona as a player and coach and three World Player awards. “He is incomparable, he plays in a different league.”
